


Saving Harry

by Araine_Whitefang



Series: Saving Harry [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Harry is rescued, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Parent Tony Stark, So does everyone else, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-02-26 17:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18721927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araine_Whitefang/pseuds/Araine_Whitefang
Summary: Four-year-old Harry just wants to be warm and safe. He's waited a long time! Then one night, there is a noise he doesn't recognize, but he doesn't think it's Dudley trying to sneak in to the fridge again. What came next wasn't what he expected at all.





	1. Saving Harry

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, taking a 4 year leave of absence from writing throws me back in to crossover one-shots. Written because of rabid plot bunnies and a severe lack of sleep while waiting for End Game to show up.  
> I own nothing, I’m just mucking in someone else’s litterbox.  
> Originally posted on fanfiction.net, I’m posting to Archive because I like it better for chaptered works.

Harry Potter is the Savior of the Wizarding world. Or so it was said. 

If anyone had told him, he wouldn’t have understood anyway. He was a smidgeon too little for that revelation, and his life wasn’t exactly an easy one. 

In the mornings, he was let out of his cupboard under the stairs. He was of the opinion that all little boys lived in a cupboard and Dudley was just too fat to fit in one. In the morning, Uncle Vernon opened the lock and then he would run to the loo super-duper fast, because he wasn’t allowed to wee in his cupboard. Peeing in his cot was Big Trouble. He had a scar on his leg from the one and only time he had to learn that lesson. 

At least he was a fast learner. At the ripe old age of 4 (Aunt Petunia was in the habit of using his age as an insult. ‘You’re 4 years old now. You should know how to fry bacon, you lazy thing!’ ‘You’re 4 years old now, you should be easily able to weed the garden yourself!’), he hadn’t had much time to learn anything, but staying away from being beat was one lesson he only needed once. Unfortunate then that the rules for such avoidance changed by the whim of his relatives, especially when Dudley liked to take away the little stool he stood on at the stove by kicking it out from under his feet. Harry wasn’t overly fond of Dudley.

The times when he was out of his cupboard, any happiness he had remaining from his dreams was always immediately stripped away. Three hours of possible cuts, guaranteed new bruises, a burn or two, and non-stop belittling and insults later, he was frog-marched back in to his cupboard, though the locks were not put on until bed time. In his cupboard, he was at least content, though stressed. It was his little place of all his own and no one went inside, except to reach in and yank him back out. Only Uncle Vernon did that – usually by grabbing him by the hair. Aunt Petunia just yelled at him until he walked out on his own. She didn’t like to touch him.

On the very rare times that their old neighbour lady, Mrs. Figg, came over to babysit, Harry was locked in his cupboard and threatened to not make a single sound, and he never did. He was very good at keeping silent. He learned that excess verbiage usually got him smacked and therefore it was on his list of things to do or not to avoid such. He’d also learned that all verbiage from him was excessive, so he typically was pretty silent.

All other times, they took Dudley with them and locked Harry in the cupboard. Their record abandonment so far was 4 days. They were the best and the worst 4 days of his life and while he sobbed through much of the first day, he actually found it nice thereafter, though the pot they gave him to use for a bathroom stank to high heaven and made him choke. He was so terribly hungry though. They’d left him a small jug of water and a half of a loaf of freezer-burned bread. As a little tyke, he had no concept of rationing and his bread did not last long. He’d never been given so much at once before! 

Not one day in his little life had passed though, without him wishing super hard for someone to rescue him. He prayed to the walls, begged the floor, cried in to his blanket and believed with his whole heart that someday, someone would rescue him, somehow, and maybe he would have a day where he didn’t hurt or was hurt. Just maybe, he would have a day where he wasn’t so hungry he wanted to throw up.

Harry was a boy of hope after all, and hope was all he had. Dudley couldn’t steal that from him.

 

Harry Potter’s eyes flew open, instantly awake. There wasn’t anything to see, per se. His cupboard under the stairs wasn’t exactly bursting with free space. He knew from the lack of light bleeding through the gap at the doorjamb that it was still night.

So, what woke him up? Typically, it was Dudley sneaking down the stairs to raid the fridge, only to attempt to blame Harry on it in the morning. Much of this was blamed on Harry’s ‘freakishness’. After all, shouldn’t magic be able to get locks on cupboards undone and then relocked again? No mention of the fact that the leftover scraps could easily be found in Dudley’s bedroom. 

Harry tried to keep his breathing even. The last thing he wanted was Uncle Vernon to come after him at night, which he was wont to do from time to time. Harry’s arm still hurt from the last thumping, and two of his fingers weren’t working all that well. Breathing as still as possible, he still couldn’t hear anything.

Then there it was – an extremely brief scrape of a chair on the lino floor in the kitchen followed by a word that would have resulted in Harry getting slapped. Dudley. Again. Harry sighed in resignation. He’d be in trouble again in the morning with something blamed on him, but after breakfast. Nothing interrupted breakfast making in the morning!

There was a light scuff sound on the floor, then footsteps heading towards the hallway. Harry got very still. Those footsteps were not Dudley or Uncle’s footsteps. These were light and being careful. Aunt Petunia didn’t sneak around her own house. 

The steps came closer and Harry felt a chill of fear run up his back and into his hair. He didn’t dare sit up off his cot lest he make some sounds. Someone was in the house and he had no idea who. As a little boy who spent 90% of his waking hours and all of his sleeping ones in that cupboard, his hearing was pretty good and knew all of the sounds of the house.

“Where to?” a voice whispered, then silence for a moment, followed by, “Straight ahead. Got it.” The footsteps came right to the outside of the door. 

Harry felt ill with fear. There was no way that voice belonged to his relatives. It was a man, for sure, and he was talking to someone who was telling him where to go. The bolt on the outside of his door started to slide back and the door was slowly opened. Poor little Harry wasn’t sure if he should run, fight, cry or scream.

Then he saw who opened the door. It was a man who looked a little bit like Harry, but he was a bit too frightened to realise that. Harry braced himself for being dragged out by his hair or hit, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.

The man’s face and nose wrinkled in brief disgust, but he crouched low to the ground and waited for the little boy to open his eyes. Unfortunately, this particular man wasn’t known for being patient nor parental.

“Hey kid. Open your eyes. You wanna get outta here?”

Those 5 words had Harry’s green eyes flying open immediately, with a look of complete surprise on his face. He took a good look at the man before him who had said those ludicrous words. Did his cries of help get heard? Whomever the man was, he was down on Harry’s level and Harry thought he was the nicest looking man he’d ever seen. Where his uncle & cousin were rotund and soft, this man was all hard angles and lean with a precise goatee. Harry nodded his assent. He had no one who cared about him enough to teach him not to go away with strangers and the alternative was to stay put.

The man spoke again. “I need you to say out loud that you’ll come with me, okay buddy? It’s important for words right now. Will you come with me?”

Harry was confused, but a small “Yes sir,” was whispered out. The man grinned.

“Good.” He tapped a device at his ear. “Nat, tell Legolas we’re coming out.” The man quickly reached forward to pick Harry up, but retreated immediately. His target had flinched hard and ducked. “F…ridges,” he muttered. He might not be parental, but Pepper would clobber him if he F-bombed in front of a preschooler, even if he immediately understood the reason why the kid flinched. He sat right on the floor and softened his tone.

“Hey kid. Harry.” Using the kid’s name got an immediate head lift and wide-eyed stare. It was extremely rare he was called by that name! “My name is Tony. I’m here to take you away from this place. From the looks (and smell, he thought) of this hole you’re sleeping in, I promise you we can do better. We don’t have a lot of time. Whaddya say, come with me, okay?” Tony held his hand out but didn’t reach far.

Harry’s eyes narrowed a bit. He might be 4, but he was a pretty smart cookie. He could make breakfast and could count to at least 20, and Dudley couldn’t. He was also smart enough to know when something sounded pretty good. Getting away sounded really good. He carefully put his blanket down, nodded at Tony again and this time, stood up, though a bit wobbly on his feet. 

As Harry stood up, Tony slowly got up as well, but stayed crouched. When Harry got close enough, Tony reached out for him again, only this time with the posture one would to a wary and hurt dog. “C’mon, we gotta go kid. I’m sorry, but please don’t freak out.” 

Harry heard the word ‘freak’ and panicked. He reared his head back and started to run back in to his cupboard, but Tony was bigger and faster and was being told in his ear that they were out of time. Tony scooped Harry up in to his arms and closed the door behind them. Harry started to put up a bit of a fight with grunts and growls and was about to open his mouth to bite when Tony opened the front door and Harry froze. 

Standing just outside the front door was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen in his short little life. There was a red and gold suit of armor, standing there empty with a glowing palm up and aimed at the door. Harry ceased his struggles immediately as he faced what he could only conceive as a nightmare. 

Tony put him down and stepped in to the armor in one smooth move. The armor closed in on him and with only seconds having passed, picked Harry up again.

“There is a magical signature being picked up just outside the perimeter Fury outlined, sir,” Jarvis relayed to Tony. “Clint has already retreated. Director Fury has requested you fly young sir straight to the Quinjet. They’ve left the door open for you.”

“Perfect. Harry, you need to hang on to me very tight, two hands, don’t let go.” Harry complied, then Tony took to the air, staying low. Flying with just his boots wasn’t always the easiest, so hopefully the kid could hang on so he could use his hand stabilizers. He glanced down at his young charge expecting a panicked little face. Instead, Harry’s eyes were wide. ‘Hunh, the kid likes flying. Too bad we can’t show off a bit.’ Tony thought, but focused on his mission. With magic users closing in, he didn’t dare risk being shorted out. He was pretty sure the ARC was insulated far better, but there was still enough electricity in his systems, it wasn’t worth the risk.

The flight was very short and the Quinjet took off the second Tony and Harry cleared the hatch door. A quick “Package secured” from Clint, and they were off.

Tony went to put Harry down to exit his suit, but Harry hung on with his right arm, and he buried his face in to Iron Man’s neck. Tony put his faceplate up to avoid the metallic voice while speaking with Harry.

“Hey, little guy. I need to put you down for a sec, just like last time, okay?” and Tony did so, Harry refusing to turn around to look anywhere else. Tony stepped out of his suit and picked Harry up by his armpits, then dropped in to a seat with a thud.

When he did so, there was a small little whimper from Harry, and he buried his face in to Tony’s neck. Clint’s eyes narrowed and he made eye contact with Tony. “Is he hurt?” 

“What? No. We came straight here.” Tony lifted his head up a bit to take a closer look at the terrified little boy. “Hey bud, sit back for a sec,” and he peeled Harry away. Green eyes looked back at him with a slew of emotions, but there were signs now that he was a bit flushed, and Tony couldn’t help but notice the obvious. In the short bit of time that they’d had Harry, it dawned on Tony that the little gaffer hadn’t used his left arm, not even to hang on when they were flying.

“Jarvis, run a health scan on Harry.” Harry had no idea who Jarvis was, but Jarvis answered, “Yes sir. Stand by.” Harry’s eyes flicked up to see where Mr. Jarvis was, but couldn’t see him. From the ceiling, a small beam of light shot out and lit up Harry’s back, not that he saw with his head laying on Tony’s shoulder. The light scanned him quickly and was gone. “Analyzing, sir. One moment.”

After a moment where Clint moved to the front to update Natalie on what was going on, Jarvis said, “Scan complete. The list is somewhat lengthy, and I’ve forwarded it to your phone.” Tony frowned at the odd instruction and fished in his pocket for his StarkPhone.

It was already lit up with Jarvis’ report. He now understood why his trusty AI hadn’t spoken the details out loud. Tony took a steadying breath. He was in high danger of yelling and frightening the hell outta the kid, and after scanning the report, his temper was the last thing this kid needed. Hell, this kid was gonna be in therapy for a decade.

After the second deep breath in dire hope of keeping his temper in check, Clint looked back and saw Tony’s livid face. His eyebrows went up and Tony flicked his phone at Barton, which the archer easily caught.

“Holy f…rozen cans of soup.’ The list was absurd. When the mission had been assigned by Fury, they were not given much information as to why they were kidnapping a 4 year old kid, other than the three of them being given a crash course in Magicals and the Statute of Secrecy. 

Clint didn’t a damn anymore as to why. The kid had been abused, plain and simple. Severely. He was running a fever, his wrist was broken along with a couple of fingers, and without even looking at the report, Clint knew the kid needing some feeding up, but his nutrition levels were non-existent – and that was just the start.

“Clint?” inquired Natasha. “What’s the story?” Clint looked up at her with an angry look where she was in the pilot’s chair.

“Get medical on standby. The kid’s gonna need some help when we land.” Romanov didn’t even question her long-time partner and called it in while Clint moved back to Tony and Harry.

Harry could not see where they were coming in to land the plane, other than it appeared to be a platform in the sky. He was so very tired and curious and scared, all at the same time. It made his tummy flutter and ache.

Mr. Tony, the flying tin man, had big strong arms and he smelled way more nice than his cupboard. Sorta like motor oil and something kinda spicy. Mr. Tony didn’t yank on his arms much or throw him when he’d put Harry down and he didn’t hurt too much when he picked him back up. He was okay in Harry’s book. 

He still couldn’t find Mr. Jarvis though. Mr. Jarvis was the only one who didn’t talk funny, but Harry didn’t see him in the airplane. Maybe Mr. Jarvis was flying it? Harry’s thoughts kept him occupied for quite some time, but even though Mr. Tony started to snore a bit, Harry stayed awake. He wasn’t sure what was going on but didn’t want to risk sleeping yet.

Harry was jolted out of his thoughts as the jet landed and Tony stood up, cradling Harry in his arms. The hatch door swung down and Tony, leaving his armor behind, started down the gangplank flanked by Black Widow and Hawkeye. 

Tony hovered his hand over Harry’s eyes. “Careful, Little Bit, the sun is bright – we’re not in England anymore. Let your eyes adjust.” And adjust they did! After a few seconds, Harry moved his head out from behind Tony’s hand and peered around.

They were on some huge platform surrounded by clouds! What a wonder that was to see! He’d never been much out of his cupboard, let alone the house. To be on a place in the sky! It was incredible to see and Harry let out a little gasp at the realization he was in the sky with the sun coming up.

From behind Tony & Harry, Clint saw Harry’s little face light up with wonder. “It’s something, ain’t it Squirt?” and reached forward to ruffle the little boy’s filthy mop of hair.

Harry nodded his head and Tony laughed. “Wait ‘till I take you for a real fly!” Harry’s eye widened and he pointed with his good hand back at the Quinjet. “Yeah, with the suit, not a jet.” Tony confirmed.

Harry liked that idea very much! He grinned a full out toothy grin at Tony, which the three Avengers happily returned – even Natasha seemed to be warming up to the little boy a bit.

Tony laughed and gently tickled Harry, which made him chuff in glee. “I could get used to that grin, Little Man!”

Clint grinned back at the pair and the foursome stared to head towards the bulkhead doors. Harry caught Natasha’s eyes and she made a silly face at him. He tucked his head into Tony’s neck, but was grinning.

Tony motioned towards his teammates. “Harry, that birdbrain there is Clint and that,” he stopped when the red-headed spy quired an eyebrow at him and he decided he’d best play nice, for now. “She is buckets of awesome and not deadly at all. That’s Natasha.”

Harry looked at both of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents and waved shyly at them.

Suddenly, his eyes flew open wide with terror as he spotted the medical team racing towards the Quinjet at full tilt, a gurney rattling along with them.

The three Avengers looked & spotted Harry’s problem pretty quick. Clint notched an arrow to his bow and neatly shot a flash-bang right at their feet.

“That’s enough!” he hollered out at them. Tony hugged Harry’s shaking and struggling body to his and tried to prevent the little boy from dropping to the ground. “You’re scaring the crap outta the kid, you morons!” 

The medics quickly came to a stop. No one was stupid enough to take on a single Avenger, least of all, the three of them together, Iron Man suit or not. And who knew where the others were? 

Tony tried desperately to quell Harry’s flight or fight instinct but with no success. The boy was in full blown panic attack, his little grunts and squeaks were upsetting to everyone on the tarmac that could hear them.

Tony hung on for dear life as Harry started chanting, “NO! No! Nonononononono!!!”

Just as both Clint & Natasha moved closer to see if they could help, there was a loud snap and Tony’s arms were empty – the boy was gone.

“The hell was that?!” bellered Clint. Tony was equally astounded at his suddenly empty arms and Nat was scanning the area around them with a determined look on her face.

“Spread out,” ordered Tony. “We’re miles in the air. He’ll get killed if he goes off the edge.” The enraged billionaire stomped over to where the medical team were looking rather shocked at each other and feeling pretty guilty for it. “And you morons do exactly the opposite of what you just did. I now have a panicked and injured child on a flying ship of destruction.” The entire medical team backed up slowly. Angry Avengers were way above their pay grade.

Tony stuck his hand out towards the Quinjet and called to his suit.

Nothing happened. 15 seconds later, he was still standing there with his arm hanging out. 

He called to his suit a second time, glancing at his bracelet. It was dead. “The hell?” he wondered.  
The billionaire grumped at his tech and stalked back to the Quinjet, while his teammates started searching the deck.

“Jarvis,” Tony called once he got inside the jet. “The hell is going on…” Tony’s voice faded off as Jarvis cut in.

“Sir, I was unable to deploy due to circumstances beyond my control. I’ve had to do a reboot and a full diagnostic.” The AI sounded uncharacteristically confused and embarrassed.

“Jarvis?” Tony queried. “Explain.”

“Your suit, Mr. Stark, has a new resident, for a lack of a better description. Refer to the dash monitor. Of note, it is the only one that hasn’t shorted out. The effect is similar to a low level EMP, of which origin I’ve yet to determine.”

EMP? Tony was having a hard time believing that. His ARC Reactor was relatively immune to that, but now that he was paying attention, he realised that much of the Quinjet’s tech was flickering or in the process of rebooting. One monitor, close to his suit, was completely fried and lightly smoking.

Tony walked over to the display, which flickered on and the surveillance video started to play.

Tony could hear and see the conversation outside repeating to where Harry disappeared. The view switched to inside the Quinjet and Tony saw, in the most fractured of moments, a sort of streak hit his Iron Man suit.

He looked at his suit suspiciously. “Jarvis, open it up,” he commanded. The AI relayed the command to the suit and it cracked open, albeit fractionally.

“Sir, if I open it up fully, he will tumble out.” Lo and behold, tucked down in one leg of the suit, was the little boy, unconscious. 

“Oh hell,” muttered Tony. “Let the others know we have him. Remote fly him straight to the base, Jarvis. Slowly and carefully.” Tony didn’t want to risk lifting the exhausted boy out of the suit.

“Yes sir.” The suit fired it’s stabilizer jets and gently lifted off, horizontal. Tony walked beside his suit and down the gangplank as Natasha and Clint reached him.

Natasha’s face was puzzled as she looked at the odd procession. It wasn’t every day one saw Tony Stark walking beside his suit instead of being in it.

Tony answered the unasked question. “He’s in the suit, passed clean out from terror. We need him in the infirmary, stat.” Both spies nodded and fell in to step. 

As they drew closer (with one of the medics from before who sheepishly fell in step with them) to the main door, a figure in black peeled away from where he was leaning against the wall.

Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, was an intimidating man, at the best of times. Today was no different. “Report,” he barked out, as he held open the large door for the suit to pass through.

Agent Romanoff responded. “Sir, target acquired. To our knowledge, we were not seen and we were not pursued. We did see three Mag targets closing in, but the wards did not allow them closer. There was a fourth who came up to the edge of the ward line and stopped, but did not enter.” She pointed with her chin towards the suit. “Target was scanned by Jarvis and is injured. He panicked and is hiding in Iron Man’s leg, though unconscious.”

At the odd statement, Fury looked over at Tony’s suit. “Stark, tell me how a four-year-old came to be hiding inside a suit even the military has a hard time getting to listen to them, even WITH your permission.”

Tony shrugged. “Search me. Well, don’t, I’m ticklish and I’m not ready to take our relationship to that level.” Fury sighed with impatience while Clint smirked. “One second he was in my arms having a panic attack induced by your medical attack squad, the next he was gone, and Jarvis wasn’t responding.”

“I was shorted out along with much of the Quinjet, Director,” Jarvis added helpfully. “While I was unable to measure any fluctuations, there was a brief, albeit large, spike in the EM wavelength that I was unable to measure. I am uncertain if I can even measure the wavelength it was on. My systems automatically reset at that time.”

The group reached the medical bay and walked over to a bed where five other medics were waiting, though they were eyeballing the three Avengers rather warily.

Tony waved them off with his hands flapping. “Shoo!” he motioned, like he was waving flies away. “Shoo! Too many minions. If the kid is awake, you’ll scare the hell outta him again. Back up!” Fury nodded at his medical staff and all except the medic that walked in with them backed away obediently. 

“Alright Jarvis – slowly.” With a soft hiss and pop, Tony’s Iron Man suit peeled open to the waist, revealing it’s precious cargo. Harry was awake, evidenced by his tear-streaked face turned up at the sudden light.

“Phew! The kid needs a bath!” griped the medic beside Tony. All three Avengers and Tony’s half-opened suit turned towards the man in disbelief at the statement. The medic, with the identifying nametag of ‘Elliot’ started to back up rapidly.

“Idiot, is it?” Tony asked sarcastically, pretending to squint at the man’s nametag. “Oh, sorry there Elliot. Idiot, Elliot, pretty close. Was there something you were saying? I encourage you to repeat it.” The look on Tony’s face made Elliot wish he’d worn cleaner underwear today, as he was certain he was going to be killed any moment. Tony Stark was not a huge man. Just barely over 6’0, but all lean muscle, he was not as vulnerable without his suit as one might think. 

Elliot swallowed hard. “My apologies. Truly Mr. Stark. He’s a cute kid, just caught me off guard is all.” He put his hands up in surrender. “I meant no harm. He needs help. Let me help.” Elliot licked his lips in sheer nerves but did not break eye contact with Elliot.

Tony started him down for a moment, then clapped his hand on the SHIELD medic’s shoulder and squeezed. “All good! All good.” The grip intensified, but Elliot did dare move. “We need medical help. I like you. You will help.” One last painful squeeze, then Tony let go. “The Hulk needs a friend anyway. I’ll introduce you.”

Clint barked out a quick laugh and his partner grinned. “C’mon,” said Nat. “Let get the poor kid out.”

Tony was back to all business. “Jarvis, leg open, as slow as you can. I’ll play catch.” Just as Tony finished speaking, there was a sniffle from down the suit’s legs and a pair of green eyes were peering up them all. 

Harry was completely overwhelmed. He was very tightly wedged in to the leg of the Tin Man’s suit and his little feet hurt an awful lot. His one foot in particular was terribly cramped and achy, like when Dudley would stomp it.

He badly wanted to burst in to tears but he took a shuddering breath and put his little arm up towards Tony’s concerned face. Crying got him in trouble, and he wouldn’t cry. 

Tony’s heart was aching, and not due to having used too little silicon on his ARC reactor either. He couldn’t resist the fact that Harry seemed to at least marginally trust him. He reached down and carefully put his hands under the boy’s armpits and started to lift him out.

The moment Harry was clear, the pain was far too much and his sniffling turned to shuddery crying, which simply made Tony hug him securely and started to rub Harry’s back – and stopped immediately at Harry’s barely concealed wince.

Clint slowly came over. The father in him was just as disturbed as Tony seemed to be. If this was one of his kids, he’d kill whomever caused the pain. There was a reason his kids were his deepest secret. He would end anyone who compromised their safety. 

“Hey Tiger. I betcha you’re sick of the noise & people, hunh?” Harry nodded, his little nose scrunched up. He was very obviously uncomfortable. “You’re a brave little tyke for putting up with so much. I bet you’d like it if it was a bit darker in here and not so many weird strangers, yeah?”

Harry lifted his head from Tony’s shoulder and nodded again. Clint carefully approached a little closer. “Nat, Tony and I were sent to rescue you. You don’t ever have to go back to that place. I know you’ve had people probably promise you things before, but we keep our promises here, and all three of us promise to never let you back in that house again. Right guys?” he asked, without taking his gaze off Harry.

Harry looked at the other two Avengers. The scary lady, Nat, she smiled at him a little and nodded her head. Tony touched just under his chin and said, “Champ, Legolas is right. You’re ours now. You’ll get looked after, be warm, have a bed, baths, food, toys, whatever you want, you’ll have it. Your days at that house with those,” Tony tried to find a child-appropriate word, “…relatives, will never happen again. Ever. I swear.”

Harry’s eyes started to water a little as he took all three of them in, like he was measuring them up. “Never?” his little scratchy voice warbled out.

“Never. We promise.” Nat emphatically said. She had all the maternal instincts of a bar of soap but hurting kids wasn’t going to be on her ledger any time soon.

Tony hummed his agreement. “Whaddya say kid? We tell all these people to go away except Idiot, er, I mean Elliot, and we get to fix up your arm so it’s not hurting. Deal?” Tony took it as a personal victory that Harry nearly laughed and had even cracked a small grin at Tony’s deliberate nickname for Elliot, even if Elliot was glowering at Tony.”

No words, just a nod from Harry was all it took. All of the unessential people were dismissed by Fury until the only ones left were the three Avengers, their young charge and Elliot the Idiot Medic. Fury melted in to the shadows near the door that were left by the lowering of the lights and kept guard from there.

Tony sat Harry on the bed and couldn’t believe the little creep’s trust in them. Poor kid that he’d trust this strange lot over his relatives, which just went to show just how messed up his short little life was.

“Ready, Freddy?” He asked, & gently ruffled Harry’s hair. “Mr. Blue Coveralls is going to give you a lookover. We’ll be right here. He won’t hurt you. Clint will stick him with an arrow if he does, okay?”

Harry grinned a little and Barton waggled his eyebrows at him. The kid was alright in his books. Even with what was probably a frightening day for him, he was still grinning when it was nearly over. Tough little guy.

The medic moved in and started muttering to Harry about what he was doing. It seemed to work, as Harry stayed calm for the start of the exam and looked up at Tony now and then, just to make sure he was still there.

Every once in awhile, it looked like Harry was going to flee or oddly enough, bite, but he stayed put and silent, even when a bigger machine was rolled over.

Tony and Clint kept Harry distracted while Natasha had retreated to the shadows to debrief with Director Fury.

After what seemed to be forever to Harry’s way of thinking, the medic stepped away with a sigh. He motioned to Tony and they walked over to where Widow and Fury were talking quietly. Clint stayed with Harry and without a word to the boy, drew an arrow from his quiver and tried to explain it in little boy terms to him.

“Well?” inquired Fury. “What are we looking at here?” Even with one eye, the guy could intimidate better than anyone and Elliot tried not to shrink.

“Well,” he started. “It’s good and horrid, and by good, I mean horrid.”

A soft giggle from Harry caused all four to glance in his direction. Clint was balancing the tip of his arrow on his fingertip, while making cross-eyed silly faces at Harry.

Tony grinned at the pair but was immediately serious. “Explain. We know he’s in bad shape, despite his miraculous decent mood at the moment, which probably speaks to the problem anyway. Any normal kid would be screaming his head off. You can’t tell us he’s not in pain.” Tony looked beyond frustrated and worried, not something anyone was used to seeing on his face unless electronics were involved. “Hell, what kind of kid lets himself wander off with strangers to a Helicarrier without batting an eyelash?” They could all easily agree that Harry was a tad off-kilter from the statistical norm. “Pretty sure I’ve carried around books at MIT that weigh more than he does,” Stark concluded.

Elliot handed over a hastily created folder to Fury, but Tony was faster and snatched it. Fury sighed and Nat rolled her eyes, but they both knew that Tony wouldn’t be dissuaded, and it was pointless to argue with him. With Stark, one had to pick their battles carefully when he was in the mood to be stubborn. 

“Broken. Broken. Broken. Effing broken. Not set. Stabbed?!” the genius was rapidly muttering to himself. “The hell has this kid survived? Being in a car while it’s smushed to a five inch cube?”

“That’s exactly it, Mr. Stark.” Tony looked away from the folder and turned his attention to Elliot. Fury took the opportunity to relieve Stark of the folder and look through it. “He shouldn’t have. He should be dead. I’d love to do more tests but I don’t know how much more the little guy can take. He needs more testing, but he’s, well, I have a little girl his age. She outweighs him by a good 10 pounds or more. He’s miles behind in physical development. I would rip someone apart if someone touched her like this.” Tony looked at him appreciatively

“Okay. I like you more now, medic man. And yeah, I’d like to see him get what he needs, but the kid is about done for today, probably.” A soft cough from Clint and Fury pointed with his chin to where Harry was. “Look. Quietly.”

They turned and tried not to gape. With his good hand, Harry had Clint’s arrow, only Harry wasn’t touching it. It was dancing in the air. His little face was scrunched up in concentration, the tiny tip of his tongue sticking out of his lips. 

Clint was doing everything he could not to react and stop Harry from doing, well, whatever he was doing. Elliot wasn’t so successful on his face, but at least managed to keep his mouth shut. Tony looked back at Fury and noticed that the Director didn’t appear to be too totally shocked at what he was seeing. Tony’s brain went in to overdrive as he tried to sort out what he was seeing. It wasn’t even remotely logical.

Sure, they’d seen things, but from Thor & Loki. This kid was a kid. “Is he Asgardian?” He quietly asked Fury.

“No. Not that I’m aware of. We’re getting in to a level of classified that no one here was supposed to see just yet. I’ll brief you later on that though.” Tony opened his mouth to rapid-fire some more questions, but Fury cut him off. “Stash it, Stark. You’ll have what you’re after, later. No hacking will find this. It’s not on any electronic system.”

‘Challenge accepted,’ thought Tony and started making mental plans on how to locate & access Fury’s paper files.

Elliot got back to business, despite wanting to watch the kid a little more, weirdness and all. “Look. The truth is, I need to put the kid right out. His bone structure looks like he went through a trash compactor backwards, but despite how he’s acting now, he’s weak. He’s insanely underweight, which I know we all can easily see.”

“So,” said Tony, “We feed the kid up for a little bit, then fix everything. Done.” Tony shrugged. Wasn’t that big of a deal to figure that out, in his mind.

“Yes and no.” Elliot fired back. “I’m not sure he will eat, for starters. He’s been starved. His body isn’t used to food whatsoever. It’s going to be hell to get him to eat on a schedule. He should be sitting at about 1700-2000 calories a day, for a normal and active 4-year-old. It’ll be a miracle if he’s been getting 300 a day. That’s less than 10% of what he needs. We’re SHIELD. We don’t do underfed kids. I mean, we can throw him in the infirmary for the next two months, but this isn’t a place for a kid.” Elliot paused a moment before continuing. “He doesn’t know how to properly socialize. From the time you got to his house in England to bringing him here, he hasn’t once asked to go to the bathroom, yawned or asked for something to eat. The kid is gonna collapse, but I can’t explain why he hasn’t already.”

The truth of Harry Potter was starting to dawn on the adults in the room. 

“We’ll take him to the Tower,” Tony heard someone abruptly say. Four other heads turned sharply, and Tony found them all staring at him. Apparently, he was the crazy nutjob who just offered to take a 4-year-old to one of the biggest targets in NYC for bad guys to attempt to destroy. For the first time in a long time, he had nothing to add. No smart comment. “He needs us. I’m not letting him in to the foster system. He’s a statistic waiting to happen, and every one of us knows it,” He defended quickly before someone started arguing.

Fury sighed. “Look, Stark. That’s not-“

“Wrong. That’s exactly how it’ll happen.” Tony was getting angry that everyone seemed to think he’d grown a third head. “He goes in to the system, terrified of being hit or asking for something, and eventually, he’ll act out or cave in. He’ll be someone the police will be arresting and throwing in to juvie hall or he’ll suicide out before he’s 13, and you damned well know it.” Tony stopped for a second, and realised that he completely believed what he was saying. He wasn’t a genius for nothing, but he was also notorious for bending facts to make things appear his direction. There was no bending this one.

Widow leaned towards him with a curious look on her face. “What’s the kid done to you, Stark?” She said softly. “Why did you let him in your head? You can’t be staying up for days on end in a bipolar high and then top it off with a whisky binge. He’ll just become the exact statistic you quoted, and it’ll be your fault. Not a single one of the Avengers can be there all the time, including yourself. We all have targets on our head. You can’t protect him from that.”

Clint nodded in agreement, his ears picking up the conversation while taking his arrow back from a disappointed Harry. He replaced it with a pair of infrared goggles and Harry was all smiles once again as he tried to figure out the new ‘toy’. “We just finally managed to scrub Manhattan of the stench of Loki, and you wanna bring a kid there?” Barton interjected. “That’s effed up, Stark.”

Harry popped the goggles over his head and Clint could hear a soft, “Woah, cool!” come from the little boy. Natasha smirked at the pair. Apparently, SHIELD goggles that cost more than most in the USA made in a year were the new toy of choice.

“Yeah, I do.” Tony glared at Fury. “You knew this was going to happen, Patch. You knew I couldn’t say know to a kid like this. None of us could. Hell, Steve will take to him instantly and Banner will probably mother him within an inch of his life.”

Fury grinned. “Yeah, maybe, but the truth is, the kid has been on SHIELD’s watchlist since he was 15 months old. He disappeared off our radar for awhile and it looks like we caught up just in time. Any longer, and he’d volunteer for joining Voldemort.” He cut off Tony with a glare and a wave of his hand. “Later Stark. I said later.” Tony grumped and rolled his eyes.

“Enough gabbing,” he continued. “Let’s get the kid fed & watered and let him sleep. Tomorrow, we can put him under and do some fixing.” 

“His hand?” queried Tony. “You can’t leave him like that.”

Elliot said, “We’ll mildly sedate him tonight so he can sleep. I’ll stabilize his hand, but not set it. And he’s getting a bath.” The medic prepared to be glared at for this one, but apparently, they all agreed. Poor little dude hadn’t been bathed in what smelled like a year. “Tomorrow, we get to work after we put him under. It must be done, but I don’t think I can tonight. He’s stressed out bad enough with the few readings I did take, and the bath will be painful, no matter how hard we try not to hurt him.”

The adults nodded in agreement. Nat left to meet up with Agent Coulson and get things sorted out for sleeping and bathing, Fury following behind her. Elliot went to consult with the other medics in the room and they started their own conference to plan for the next day.

Tony stuck his hands in his pockets and went to where Harry & Clint were. “Hey Little Man, you ready for something to eat?” 

Harry’s green eyes looked at Tony carefully, then he nodded and gently gave back the goggles to Clint. “Where ya taking him?” asked Clint. 

“Mess hall. Fastest way to get anything in him at this time of day. Breakfast should still be going. Ready to roll Harry?” Tony held his hands out to Harry & Harry nodded back with a smile. He liked Tony & Clint, but the jury was still out on the others. Tony very carefully picked Harry up and Clint made sure his hand was all tucked in before they set out. “Jarvis – head to storage and charge up, just in case.”

“Yes sir,” the AI said obediently, and the Iron Man suit walked off to do exactly that.

“Well,” said Clint. “We’re parents.”

Tony grinned. “Ya think so? You’re the mommy then. You can pass it off to Big Green once we get to the tower.” Tony sighed. “Pep is gonna kill me.”

The two laughed and even Harry grinned, though he had no idea what was going on. He liked the sound of having parents though! This was the craziest day he’d ever had and he hoped it never ended.


	2. Saving Cap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry was finally free of the Dursleys, but who were all these strange people? The big blonde guy seemed as sad and confused as Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of the Saving Harry series. It was meant to be a one-shot, but the plot bunnies replicated and some really awesome reviews on ff.net had me continuing it.

Steve Rogers sat firmly on a wooden kitchen chair, back straight, scowling at a tablet that Tony had given him. Even with the incredible technology that Harold Stark was capable of back pre-freeze, tablets were both fascinating and frightening to him. The Internet was complicated and highly rude, and people said the most horrible things about people but pretended they didn’t mean it.

Back before, a handshake was your bond and your word was simply your word. Women didn’t show so much skin and they didn’t swear that lewdly either. The music was loud and crashing and hard on the ears. The garbage that spewed from Tony’s lab was horrendous. Steve was positive that it was only the Super Serum preventing his ears from bleeding.

He heard the whine of an engine and looked up through the window of the kitchen. The Quinjet was landing. There wasn’t much information on why the Avengers were semi-assembled to go pick up a little boy, but orders were orders and his were to stay put. Banner was out of town on a scientific consultation. No one had heard from Thor in quite some time, and it was assumed the Bifrost had not been repaired to completion just yet.

He’d received further instructions a few hours ago from Stark to go and buy some clothing that would hopefully fit a 2 to 3-year-old toddler, which he did. He figured the kid must be staying for a little bit and didn’t have things with him. He may have accidentally thrown a stuffed bear in the pile of clothing while he was at it. He’d left the bag in the kitchen beside the cupboard for now. They could put it away later once he figured out where the kid was going.

Shutting the tablet off, he stood and headed over to the door off the atrium that was closest to where Tony, Clint and Natasha would bring the little boy in, and waited for them to disembark and come closer.

Clint & Natasha were the first to come down the gangplank, followed by Tony carrying the little boy. Steve had zero experience with little kids, but he was suddenly worried that the clothes he bought were miles too big. Tony was carrying him with one arm under the boy’s little butt, and he handed a paper bag to Clint, and then adjusted his hold on the little guy. He looked to be about two years old, to Steve’s inexperienced eyes.

Captain America was used to not questioning orders or missions, but he was so very curious. The kid looked like he did when Steve was sickly and weak and small. The poor boy was in desperate need of a lot of sandwiches and had a cast on his left arm. Other than a mop of black hair, Steve couldn’t see much else right now, as he little boy’s face was buried in Tony’s neck.

As the group came in to range of Steve, Tony caught Steve’s eye and shook his head, just as Steve was about to open his mouth to greet them. Tony slowed down as they got to Steve and put his arm up on the boy’s back.

“Hey Sport. We’re home. Feel like meeting someone? He lives here too. He’s one of the good guys – nice like me, and not as ugly as Fury.” There was a muffled but tired giggle from the little boy, and he lifted his head up to see Steve.

“Capsicle, this is Harry. Harry, this is Cap. Sometimes, we call him Steve.” Tony and Harry shared a little grin and Harry looked back at Steve. 

Steve smiled at the little tyke and figured he was too little to understand the conversation but greeted him anyway. “Hey Harry. Welcome. 

Despite how tired he was, Harry knew it was rude to be introduced to someone and not at least look at them. Aunt Petunia would smack him one for that. Not that she ever introduced him to anyone. He’d been called ‘Harry’ more times in the past day or so than he had in his lifetime!

“H’lo, Cap,” he said, and then tucked his head back on Tony’s shoulder. Steve smiled at the boy. He was awfully cute, and somewhat reminded him of a kid he went to grade school with, back in the day. A fleeting maudlin though raced across his head that the kid would be long dead by now. He also clued in that Harry’s speech wasn’t that of a toddler, despite his size. Curious.

“Hello yourself. Are you hungry? There’s some food in the kitchen, and it’s still hot,” Steve offered. Harry shook his head ‘no’, but Tony answered for him. 

“Thanks Cap. He’s tuckered out, but he needs to eat.” With that declaration, the group moved inside and made their way to the kitchens.

“It’s nothing much,” Steve corrected. “Just soup, but it’s good.”

Clint snorted. “Yeah, nothing much. You can’t cook your way out of a wet paper bag Cap, but your soup is damned good.” Natasha was going to pass on food, but her growling stomach gave her away. 

The four Avengers settled down around the common room table, Harry still in Tony’s lap where he’d been glued since they arrived home. Steve already had bowls and spoons on the table, and he dropped a steaming hot tureen of soup in the middle of the group.

“Ladies first,” and he handed the ladle to Natasha, where she started dishing up. Very soon, sounds of slurping and eating and murmurs of pleasure were coming from all of them. Even Harry was sitting with his back to Tony’s chest, trying a little bit while making the cutest little screwed up face trying to blow cooler air on his spoon.

Sitting beside Tony & Harry, Steve leaned a little closer to Harry and asked him in a soft voice, “Do you like the soup, Harry? 

The little guy’s green eyes connected with Steve and he smiled and hummed in agreement. “Yum! Thank you Mr. Cap,” and he took another spoonful, albeit awkwardly. Steve noticed he was struggling with his spoon. It was far too big for a little guy his age, and he held it awkwardly, like he had never been shown how.

Steve stood up with the intentions of getting the smallest teaspoon he could find in the drawer, but he startled Harry with the abrupt movement. Soup spilled right on to Tony’s lap. Harry dropped the spoon and his eyes went wide in fright. With a now-familiar ‘pop’, he disappeared right out of Tony’s lap.

“Sonnuva… Jarvis, did you catch his energy streak?” asked Tony. Steve just stared at Tony’s blank lap. What on earth had he just seen?

“Stark?” he asked. “What the heck?” Clint answered while Tony stood up.

“Harry’s not had a good life, Cap. He startles easily, poor guy.” Clint’s face flash with brief anger thinking of where they rescued Harry from. “He probably expected to be punished for simply spilling a tiny amount of soup. He teleports when he’s frightened, usually to somewhere small and tight so he can feel safe.”  
“Jarvis can track him,” Tony added, “But we have a helluva time seeing what happens. Even on camera. We call it an energy streak for now. We’ve yet to figure out what energy though.”

Steve frowned and thought it over. What had Harry been through to react like this? To have to be rescued by the Avengers? He watched Tony as he looked at his phone at what Jarvis had sent to him and couldn’t help but peer over the shorter man’s shoulder to see what it was that Jarvis sent about Harry.

There was the footage of Harry sitting on Tony’s lap, happy with interacting with Steve, then the flash of sheer terror on his little face and then something Tony was playing over repeatedly, as it happened so fast. Steve saw a streak of extremely fast light flash off Tony’s lap and it went straight back into the kitchen. After Tony slowed the video down a bit, they both could see it end in the pantry.

Tony sighed. “Tony,” started Clint. “We’ll get him there.” Even the ever-controlled Black Widow looked sad. “All of us together. He won’t do this forever.” Tony nodded and started to move to the kitchen.

Steve couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but hey – Norse gods, teleporting kid, right? His long legs brought him in to the kitchen before the others. “Let me get him. I frightened him. I want him to know he’s safe with me too.” 

The other three nodded their assent. They’d spent the last two days with Harry on the Helicarrier and they were as tired as the little boy was. It had been a long 48 hours of a little boy flipping between panic attacks, happy giggles and hidden displeasure at the medical treatments. Mentally, they were done. They were more than willing to let Steve take a crack at soothing Harry.

While the other three Avengers stood back, Steve walked right over to the pantry doors near the large fridge, then sat on the floor cross-legged. He listened for a moment and heard an upset little sniffle. His heart broke for a kid who wasn’t with any family and somehow was stuck with a bunch of overpowered humans in a tower. Not really the spot for a little boy, he thought.

After a few seconds, he leaned forward and knocked gently on the door with three quick knocks. “Hello? I’m looking for Mr. Harry. I wish him to know that the teensy bit of soup spilled is cleaned up and gone away. I wish him to know that Mr. Harry is safe here and no one will hurt him and the rules he knew before don’t matter here.” Steve stopped for a moment and listened again. The sniffling had stopped, and he heard a little bit of movement as Harry shuffled.

Clint elbowed Natasha and they exchanged a look that had them both agreeing that they thought Steve was half crazy and half genius. Tony was looking anxiously at the door and like he wanted to just rush the pantry and pull Harry out. The SHIELD spies collectively agreed they would stop him if he did something that colossally stupid. At least Thor’s booming voice wasn’t around. The kid would probably teleport to Africa.

Steve knocked one more time on the door. “So hey, Mr. Harry. Can I open the door a little? You can stay put. You don’t have to come out, but I give big hugs and I have one for you. It’s all yours and you don’t have to do anything for it, okay?” Steve thought back to when he was a kid and Bucky would help Steve through his asthma attacks. Harry wasn’t much different than him, really. Tiny and scared but taking on the world with everything he had and coping the best he could with a stiff upper lip.

Tony leaned forward a little bit to see if the door opened and Clint went to the balls of his feet, just in case Tony bolted forward. There was a brief pause, then the pantry door slowly opened a crack. Steve had to force himself not to open the door the entire way. They’d probably never get Harry out of there then. Natasha tried to hold back a smirk. The entire situation was like hatching a baby bird. You want to see what’s inside when it starts to crack but you can’t pull the shell off or you risk harming the hatchling.

“Hey, green eyes,” they heard Steve softly say. “I see you. You can come out when you’re ready. I’ll wait here for you, so you can get your hug. Hugs are always free.” Like Tony had only a couple of days before, Steve talked to Harry as if he was soothing a wounded pet. It amazed him how fast the little guy had wrapped himself around his heart. He’d do anything never see that frightened look ever again.

After some more soothing words from Steve and some very high anxiety moments for Tony’s crumbling self-control, finally a little mop of black hair pushed its way through the crack in the door and Steve carefully scooped him up and deposited him on to his lap, folding him in to a hug. 

Harry sighed in exhaustion. He was about done with the world right now. He was so confused and still hurting a little bit. The cast on his arm itched, and he just wanted to find a spot to curl up in and sleep. He’d found it. Cap’n’s arms were strong and huge! They wrapped around him like blankets and he felt very warm and safe with Mr. Cap, even more safe than with Tin Man. Tony had an aura about him that buzzed. Nat outright scared him, even when she was smiling. Clint made him giggle. Cap’n was steady, and home and most of all, safe. He’d never felt safe in his life and he never wanted to leave where he was right now.

He’d always wanted to be hugged like this. Dudley got hugs. Harry got slaps. In his cupboard, Harry would sometimes pile his blanket and twist it, then wrap it around himself and pretend it was his mum giving him a hug. It was never the same and he couldn’t remember ever having received a single hug.

Until now. It was perfect. 

Another big sigh from Harry and he snuggled down in to Steve’s arms and fell asleep. Clint quietly padded over and ran his fingers through Harry’s soft hair. “Good job Cap,” he quietly said. “We’ve had a helluva time trying to get him to sleep. He trusts nothing, expects nothing pleasant but everything that hurts, asks for nothing, and I think he’s just found what he wants.” Clint couldn’t help it. He was a father, with a third on the way, though that knowledge was pretty much classified and buried. “He needs to be safe and warm and steady. He needs you. None of us could do that.”

Steve’s eyes flicked up from looking at Harry and he saw his three companions all staring at him. Nat smiled, nodded and walked away to start cleaning up lunch. Tony was just staring at the group on the floor, torn between jealousy and gratitude. Apparently, the gratitude won out. 

“Told ya he’d find a mother in one of us, though I expected Bruce,” he quipped. Clint snorted and stood up. “C’mere Tony. Let’s help Cap stand without jostling Harry,” and they both did so by grabbing Steve’s elbows and bodily hauling the heavy man to his feet. Steve walked over to the leather sofa that was in front of the huge TV and carefully sat down, pulling the throw on the back of the sofa to cover them both.

“Guess I’m having a nap whether I like it or not.” Steve grinned. He scootched back on the sofa and got comfortable. Harry never moved and slept on. “Oh, Barton!” he softly called. He pointed to the bag of clothing he purchased, sitting on the floor. “In there. You’ll see it.” Clint saw on the top of the items in the bag the stuffed bear and brought it over Steve who tucked it in with Harry. 

Tony smiled and headed down to his lab and the other two Avengers cleared away the last of lunch and left to go do whatever they did when they were not avenging. 

Steve couldn’t help it. He felt all of the responsibilities and weight of carrying the Avengers, the past he’d been forced to leave behind and his dislike of the world he’d slept his way in to, start to dissolve. He hadn’t been this relaxed in the couple of years since he’d thawed out. He was still desperately trying to come to terms with this very strange world. Had he lived normally, he’d likely be dead by now and never see the 21st Century. 

He missed Bucky so much it hurt, the last image of his best friend falling to his death haunting and chasing his dreams. He’d since learned that shellshock is called PTSD, and he had a large dose of it. Somehow though, a little broken boy soothed him like nothing else could. Not all of the running and exercising, not the fighting, but Harry. Steve couldn’t even begin to explain it. He had no experience with kids, but this felt so right. 

He knew nothing about Harry, only that for the first time since he woke up, his heart was happy. He could breathe again. This little guy was innocent and hurt and no one had protected him or fought off whatever nightmare he came from, and it stirred something supremely protective in him. 

Steve knew he was an old-fashion sort, compared to this modern world. It was absolutely shocking to him to see a little boy treated in the way that Hydra and the Nazis had treated so many people in his days. He was used to fighting for the underdog, and he’d fight all of SHIELD for this little guy if he had to.

He did know that Fury was supposed to show up in the next 24 hours to brief and debrief the team. Rogers was prepared to fight to keep Harry with them. He didn’t know the logistics of having a little pair of feet around the tower, but he’d do whatever it took to make sure Harry happened.

Little did he know, down in his lab, Tony Stark’s thoughts were running right with him. If Fury thought he could steal the kid away and take him away from the Avenger’s, he’d have a helluva fight on his hands. As Steve fell asleep on the couch, his breath ruffling Harry’s hair, Tony too was in full agreement with Rogers’ thoughts. 

Steve slept soundly for the first time in over a year. Both he and Harry slept through the night on the couch, and even when Bruce made it home late that night, the pair slept on. Bruce got another blanket and covered them up and had Jarvis turn the lights off. 

The scientist had been forewarned by a text from Stark earlier in the evening that, when he came in to the common area to be quiet and to expect a kid who wasn’t good with surprises. He smiled softly at the two on the couch. Harry was laying full out on Cap’s chest, his one arm in a cast, the other curled around a stuffed bear. Steve was laying the full length of the sofa, one arm cradling the length of Harry, and the other gently laying across the little boy’s back. 

Bruce knew Cap wasn’t as mentally well as he pretended to be, and even the Other Guy was emoting some feeling of satisfaction to see him sleeping soundly. He let them be and took the elevator down to his suite of rooms. 

He’d get some answers tomorrow.


	3. Saving Bruce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is home and finds little Harry Potter curled up with Cap. What on earth is the Hulk's problem with it all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the next installment of the 'Saving Harry' series. Thank you so incredibly much to those who have reviewed and to everyone who has favourited & followed.
> 
> Enjoy, review, follow!

Bruce woke up early, as he often did. He was never one to sleep late, even before the Other Guy moved in. This morning though, he got to indulge his curious side and find out who Steve had curled up with on the sofa last night.

From Tony, Bruce knew that the kid's name was Harry Potter and that under no circumstances was Bruce to startle him. Keep his movements slow and if he was going to stand, to do so slowly and deliberately with his hands away from the little boy.

That was an easy thing to do for him. He was soft-spoken as it is and fairly laid back. The confusing part (amusing?) was that the Other Guy was being quite docile this morning, even expressing curiosity about the little boy.

That was a new one for Bruce. He'd been around kids plenty of times over the years. Quite a few, if one took in to account all the kids he'd treated and saw when hiding out in various locations pretending to be an MD and Hulk really had never had anything to say about it.

Shoving the covers on his bed aside, he got up, then turned around to tidy up and make his bed. Say many things about Bruce Banner, but messy he was not, nor did he tolerate a mess for long. While doing research, he'd sometimes get excited, then papers and books would get strewn about for awhile. He would never be able to compete with the utter slobbery that Tony was capable of accomplishing when on a creative bender.

Putting the last pillow in place, he forewent his usual morning of a shower followed by tea and toast, and instead went straight to the elevator and asked Jarvis to take him to the Avengers common room where he last saw Steve.

He tried to walk casually in to the living area, just in case the kid was awake, and it was a good thing too. A pair of green eyes under a mop of black hair stared at him very carefully and cautiously, as if weighing out whether Bruce was friend or foe, so the scientist did the only thing he could think of: He settled down in to an overstuffed chair and smiled at Harry.

"Hey, little guy," Bruce started up, then winced at the silly nickname he just gave him. He was dead positive he heard the Other Guy chuffing in laughter in the back of his head. "Just checking on you and Steve to make sure you're warm enough or if you want breakfast. My name is Bruce, and I live here with the others."

Harry was still eyeballing him carefully, then he put his good hand on Steve's chest and pushed up a little to look at Bruce head on instead of sideways. This woke Steve up immediately, and he sleepily rubbed Harry's back and opened his eyes.

"Hey Harry, you're awake. Did you sleep okay?" he asked the boy as he pulled them both up in to a sitting position. One little hand poked through the blanket and pointed at Bruce in the chair. "Who? Oh, good morning, Bruce."

"Good morning," he returned. "Looks like you found some company last night." He pointed with his chin over to Harry, who was really looking Bruce over quite thoroughly, something Steve found odd, as Harry hadn't been one to stare at a stranger thus far.

Steve smiled gently and ruffled Harry's mop of black hair. "Hey, little man. This guy is Bruce Banner. He's a scientist, really smart about big science things."

Harry looked at Steve with a curious look on his face. "'mart like Tony?" He asked.

"S-mart, little man, and yes, smart like Tony. They're good friends," Steve corrected. Harry looked back at Bruce, still with a curious and almost confused look on his little face.

"Cap'n, who else is wif him?" Harry asked. He was staring intently at Bruce now, and Bruce shuffled nervously. "There's two peoples there."

Steve and Banner exchanged a look that was half-horrified and half-shock. Could he sense the Other Guy? Steve was already surprised that Harry hadn't teleported off to hide from a complete stranger. The little guy never ceased to amaze him with his resilience and hoped that he was feeling far better today,

"Uh," started Bruce, "Well, yes. In a way. Do you see someone else?" Bruce was beyond curious. Hulk was rumbling in the back of his head about wanting to see Harry up close and Bruce had half of a mind to let him through. Tony would slaughter him though if he hulked out in the common room.

"Jarvis, can you please bring Tony up here?" Steve asked the AI. He figured some backup wouldn't hurt. "Tell him to bring a suit but not dressed. We don't need him panicking."

"Of course, Captain Rogers," Jarvis confirmed as he instantly relayed the instruction to Stark.

Harry's green eyes were staring intently right at Bruce's. "Can I meet the other guy? He's green and I bet he's nice like Mr. Bruce too."

Tony replied as he came speed walking in to the room. "Hey squirt. You seeing someone else here? Tall, black hair like me, green eyes? Wants to take over the planet?"

Harry grinned at seeing Tony and squirmed to get down from Steve's lap. Steve let him go and Tony found his arms suddenly full of little boy. "Hi Tin Man!" Steve snorted, trying his best not to laugh and Bruce coughed in to his hand to hide his grin.

"Tin Man?" Tony replied with fake indignance. "Tin Man?!" and he tickled the little boy as he swung him up to place him on his shoulder. Harry's giggles filled the room and all three men couldn't help but laugh with him.

Bruce recovered first, and still grinning at the pair remarked that perhaps Harry's laughter could be bottled and used for when he needed the Other Guy to simmer down. As it was, Bruce could clearly feel that the Hulk was happy and not enraged.

"Tony," Banner started, "He says he can sense someone else with me. Someone green." Tony's play with Harry froze immediately and he looked at Harry.

"Hey half-pint. Who do you see with our Brucey?" Harry looked back at the scientist and pointed right at him.

"Right there. Cantcha see him too? His head is all green with the other man. I wanna meet him." Harry's reply had Tony's eyebrows going up and glancing at Bruce.

"Jarvis, security sweep this room. Every bandwidth you can, every frequency. Make sure Loki isn't in here." Steve rolled his eyes. Of course, Tony would go straight at blaming Loki, but Steve thought it had more to do with Harry being able to sense the Hulk. Loki was supposed to be in Asgard with Thor undergoing a trial or some such. They hadn't heard from either god in awhile since Loki faked his death, yet again.

"More like he can sense Hulk, Tony. Bruce was saying that Hulk is calm and curious about Harry," Steve explained. "Highly doubt Loki is here."

Jarvis agreed, and let them know that his scans came up negative for anything even remotely Asgardian. His creator was a tad paranoid about the mischief-making god and even if he was an AI, he knew Tony would be relieved that there was no sign of Loki, especially with little Harry in the base.

Tony looked a bit more relieved yet disturbed at that declaration. "Harry bug, you can see Big Green Mean?"

Harry's little face screwed up in a frown. "No! He wants to meet me. He's making silly faces!" Everyone's eyebrows went up at that one and everyone started talking at once. Miraculously, the sudden cacophony of noise wasn't bothering Harry. He looked a bit angry, which on his little face was absolutely adorable.

"Everyone, simmer down!" Bruce's eyes were tinged in green, but he didn't look angry. "Harry is right." That grabbed everyone's attention and Harry took the opportunity to escape from Tony's arms and walked over to Banner.

"Harry is right. I can feel Hulk, right behind my, uh, brain, for a lack of better description. He's beyond curious about Harry and he's actually in what I'd classify a good mood." Tony snorted at that. A good mood for the Hulk usually involved the annihilation of a city.

The scientist continued, "I can't believe I'm gonna suggest this, but let's go to the Hulk's safe room and let him out. I actually think he'll be fine. I can't explain it." Everyone started to protest at once, but Harry giggled and patted Bruce on the head.

Steve and Tony exchanged a look, but decided to see where this was going. Harry was an enigma, and if they could believe in gods, teleporting toddlers and mutants, who were they to disagree?

"Fine," Tony choked out. "But the entire team will be in there, suited up, and Harry doesn't go near him until we see what Hulk's up to."

Bruce nodded and Steve muttered his agreement. Steve had never seen Bruce grin so much when he was tinged with green. It was unsettling. "I'll call in Clint & Natasha," Steve offered.

There was a rattling sound from the corner of the room and the upper vent opened. Hawkeye's head poked down. "Don't bother. We're here. Nat is just arriving and will meet us in the safe room." With that, he dropped down on to the floor, fully geared and armed.

Tony rolled his eyes. "You and the abuse of my vent work. Jarvis, remind me to install a deadly laser system in that corner so it fries birds on contact." He glared at Clint, but the archer just grinned at him and he cracked open a pack of blueberries and started munching. "And seal my blueberries in a vibranium locker." Stark called for his suit and got in, while Steve brought his shield to bear with a laugh.

Banner scooped up a giggling Harry (who just wouldn't stop playing in Bruce's hair) and the entire crew headed off for the safe room.

Natasha was already there, typing on away on a keyboard to set the parameters of the safe room. "I've set it for Hulk, but if this doesn't work, we can lock up in the secondary." She thought this was the stupidest venture the Avengers had ever taken on, and there were some fairly stupid ventures in the list of lists. One of Harry's abilities could set the Hulk off on a smash fest, for all they knew.

"Oh, superb idea," quipped Tony from his suit, though the face plate was retracted. "Let's take a 4-year-old kid and let the Hulk loose. Go team!"

"Go team!" cheered Harry from Bruce's arms. That broke the tension and everyone had a bit of a laugh, with Harry laughing the crazy laugh of a little kid who made a joke but doesn't know why it's funny,

"Yeah, go team," laughed Bruce and he passed Harry off to Rogers. Steve looked warily at Bruce as his eyes were already tinged green and his skin absolutely was a long way away from the usual dusky whiter colour.

"Hi Cap'n" chipped Harry, patting Steve on the face with his little hand. "Green time, yeah?" he asked in his proper little accent.

"Yeah, buddy. We'll all be here, alright? We're missing a few members, but we'll keep you safe." Steve was supposed to be leader of this troupe, but right now, he was pretty sure he'd be fired and his shield melted if Fury got wind of what they were up to.

"Alright crew. We don't have a lot of time. Fury is due here in 55 minutes. Let's do this before he shows up." Steve commanded, and Steve put Harry on the floor. "Stay right here Harry. Guard my shield for me, okay?" and pushing Harry to sit, Steve jammed his shield in the floor in front of the boy to give him some shelter.

Tony nodded at Steve in thanks and turned to Bruce. "Alrighty Big Green. Give 'er. Get angry."

"That's just it though Tony," Bruce explained. "He's not angry, not at all. He's eager to meet Harry. I'm simply just gonna let him go."

And he did.

Typically, Hulk came surging out and looking for smashing opportunities right at the get-go, and already roaring. This time, it was a smooth transition, and as soon as he'd fully emerged, he took one very large step towards Harry, and planted himself on the floor in front of Cap's shield.

Every Avenger in the room was locked & ready, but this was so vastly different from before. There was no angry feelings in the room, no tension, and other than one large grunt when Hulk lowered himself to the floor and sat down, there was nothing even remotely threatening about the big guy.

A little mop of black hair followed by those green eyes peered over Captain America's shield. "Oh, hi! You're here!" Harry said, and before anyone could stop him, he darted out from behind the shield, ran up the Hulk's massive leg and climbed him like a tree to sit on his shoulder, cast on the arm and all.

Hulk chuffed, and helped steady the little boy with a massive hand. Every Avenger had something trained on the pair, all of it severely deadly. Tony had the Hulk Buster ready to deploy, but then seeing Harry giggling while standing on Big Green's shoulder, his fingers threading gleefully through Hulk's hair. What was it with this kid and hair, anyway?

Everyone started to slowly stand down with a gesture from their Captain and cautiously watched the impossible – The Incredible Hulk was (laughing?) and playing with a little boy. Even when one of the boy's little feet or elbows dug in to places that would have the rest of them wincing, the big guy stayed put on the floor and simply played.

"Hulk's boy," he grumbled, and oh so carefully pulled Harry out of his hair and let the boy stand on the palm of his hand, bouncing.

Natasha exchanged an incredulous look with Barton and he grinned back at her with a shrug. She carefully walked over to the playing pair and squatted down. "Hey big guy." Hulk abruptly looked at her and grunted. "His name is Harry. He's pretty special, yeah?"

"Harry." Hulk said, though it came out more like a growl. "Harry ours?"

This caused even more odd looks between the team as they all gently closed in, though Tony looked like he was about to have an aneurysm with worry, and he stayed in the Iron Man suit.

"Yeah," she nodded. "He's ours. To keep safe and happy. You can visit him when you want, but we need Bruce back soon. We don't have much time."

Hulk kept allowing Harry to bounce around and giggle and not one of them could even fathom that he was capable of not smashing everything in sight. It went against everything they knew. "Banner says playtime is over now. I go. But I watch. Protect boy." Hulk looked at the entire team and they were certain that while there was no smashing today, upsetting Harry would result in a lot of smashing.

With that simple declaration, Hulk shrank and his colour paled, and he carefully put Harry on the ground. In a matter of moments, Bruce was back in his place, trying to hold shredded pants together for decency and Harry was waving and saying hello to Banner. Clint threw a robe at the scientist and he covered himself up and stood, as did Natasha.

"That was," Bruce started, a bit at a loss for words. "Surreal. He's still here. He never is this close by. He's… happy. Really happy. I can't even explain it. He left willingly and he's just guarding." Bruce's brows frowned in contemplation and the scientist in him couldn't resist trying to figure out what exactly had just happened.

Tony exited his suit and picked Harry up. "Hey little man," he said as they all trooped back out the exit and headed to the common room. "Did you like meeting Hulk?"

Harry grinned that impossibly irresistible grin of his and hummed in agreement. "He's my friend. Can he come and play again later?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think he can," Tony informed him, though he couldn't believe their kid was wanting a playdate with someone so deadly. "We really need to find you a real playmate though. Hulk is kinda smashy."

"He's my friend!" Harry protested with a scowl.

Barton barked out a laugh. "That's something we haven't heard before, brat. We'll let you play again someday, okay?"

Harry smiled and yawned, laying his head down on Tony's shoulder as they sat on the couch but lifted his head again when he heard a tapping noise on the patio window that lead to the walkway where Tony usually landed. He pointed at the window, "Look! Bird!" and everyone's eyes followed to see exactly that: A bird tapping on the glass. The bird in question was an owl.

"The hell?" muttered Clint.

"One of your friends?" Tony smirked. "Wait, does it have a scroll attached to it's foot?"

Barton and Romanoff pushed through the glass doors to go to the owl, but it flew over their heads and landed beside Steve, who was standing behind the couch Tony and Harry were sitting on.

"Er," he stared at the bird. "Yeah, there's a scroll, and your name is on it, Tony."

"What?" said Tony. "How?" and he turned around on the couch to take the missive from the bird, who flew away immediately back out the door as the spies were coming back inside.

Tony unrolled the short scroll. It was a brief note. "It just says, 'Dumbledore is your enemy. Keep Potter away from the magicals.'. That's it, nothing else."

Steve leaned over to read over Tony's shoulder. "No name?"

"No. Just a weird squiggle at the bottom. Maybe two letter S's hooked on each other?" The rest of the Avengers crowded in to read as well, but no one knew anything other than it was written in a thin, spidery handwriting, and looked to be on something other than paper.

"Banner?" queried Tony, as the genius put Harry on the floor for him to go play with some of the toys they had found for him.

"Parchment. It's written on parchment with ink, which is odd. And I have no idea what or who a Dumbledore is." Bruce looked as confused as everyone else.

A new voice added to the conversation. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Unofficial leader of a faction of so-called Light wizards and witches in the world that Potter comes from and currently the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The entire group looked up at Nick Fury as he strode in to the room.

"Jarvis!" Tony yelled at his AI. "The hell you didn't tell me Patch was here?"

"My apologies sir. I did not know and I'll be diagnosing that immediately." Jarvis sounded embarrassed.

"You'd better," chastised Tony. "Debrief time, crew. Gird your loins."

Hawkeye snorted in laughter and the group took seats around the room. Maybe now they would get some answers to their questions about the little boy who'd abruptly taken over the entire tower in a short space of a couple of days.


	4. Saving Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury finally shows up to explain what he can of Harry Potter and the wizarding world, though he leaves more questions than answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to part 4 of the ‘Saving Harry’ series. I’ve loved the reviews & comment from so many of you asking that Fury be next. That wasn’t the plan in my storyline, but hey – you ask, you receive. As I’m not glued to the timeline as to which character is next, it’s an easy thing to switch out for later. This is now (obviously) fully on Archive, not just ff.net. Already so many kudos - love y'all and thanks!
> 
> So, without further delay, I present part 4. Enjoy and drop me a review or message sometime. I’ll respond eventually.
> 
> Also, I’ve seen End Game. It’s INSANE and about the best fan movie I’ve ever seen in my life. There will NOT be spoilers in this fic or going forward whatsoever, as it doesn’t fit my timeline of where this series takes place, so rest easy.
> 
> This one took a little longer to post. I stressed a bit about the inevitable blending of MCU and HP worlds, what I was going to allow and how much plot I was going to wander in to. Alas, the characters keep butting in and Fury kept talking, and here we are.
> 
> Thanks for reading – I truly appreciate you dropping by!
> 
> Araine.

Nick Fury was a cautious man. He had to be. As head of SHIELD, his responsibilities were greater than almost anyone else on the planet. He juggled secrets, Avengers, a Council that tried to order him around, secret societies, and a slew of other things that would have made anyone else a suicidal alcoholic.

As he was neither suicidal nor an alcoholic, his stress manifested in a few other ways. A severe lack of humour was one of them, at least to most who knew him. His visage was stern and unforgiving, the messed-up eye adding to the scowl. 

For secrets, one of his biggest and weirdest was over in the corner, playing happily with a dump truck and making vrooming sounds. Even Nick couldn’t help but be happy that the kid, who was so horribly miserable and terrified a few short days ago, was playing on his own without a care in the world. Unfortunately, or fortunately – depending on how he was thinking at the time – the kid was the biggest mystery he had on his roster at the moment. Nothing about him made sense, even for a wizard.

Then again, if he looked closely, the kid was stealing subtle glances at him. Every now and then, without breaking his vrooming, those green eyes would flick up and take a peek at him from under his messy hair. Fury wasn’t a stupid man, and there was something else to that kid, something nearly familiar, only he just hadn’t figured it out yet.

‘Not so stupid, this kid,’ thought Nick. ‘He’s in a corner, back to the wall and has a perfect view of every person in the room,’ he mused to himself, and his brain was quite interested to see where the kid would be in a decade or so.

As the Avengers settled around the couches and jockeyed for position, Stark broke the silence. “Cap, Banner. Did either of you feed shortstuff over there?” The two Avengers in question shared a look and guilt flooded their faces. “Don’t starve my kid, you asshats. He won’t ask for food or anything else until he feels safer.”

Tony stalked off to the kitchen grumbling, but within hearing distance. “Go on, Fury. I’ll hear from here. Just saving the world, one starving kid at a time,” and proceeded to bang pots and pans around until he found what he was looking for.

“You wanted information, now you can have it,” Fury started. “There is activity in England as well, though Thor is on the planet and managing it. He’ll be joining you guys again once he’s done. He might even be able to help with this.”

“Thor? He’s here?” Tony queried. “And he didn’t even phone.” He looked over at Harry and saw that while the little boy was playing, he was keeping a wary eye on Fury. “Are we waiting for him then?” he asked as he stirred the soup, hoping it’d be edible. 

“No,” Fury clarified. “I’ll leave that fun task to you Avengers.” 

Clint snorted. “Gee, thanks. Booming Thor and a kid who’s terrified of big noises. Best idea ever.” 

“Deal with it, Barton.” Fury had no patience today. He was in the middle of a spider’s nest of the magical world, and what he’d been briefed on wasn’t great. “Here’s the info you need. There’s more, but you don’t need it. Not now, and frankly, I don’t have it.” 

Fury stalked over to the counter and poured himself a coffee. “The wizarding world is messed up. They’ve put their entire hopes on a little kid and expect him to grow up and save them all.”

“What?” asked Natasha incredulously. “If that’s true, why the hell would we have hauled him out of a home where he was treated so terribly? I’ve seen damage, that kid was beyond damaged.”

Steve, who’d been keeping quiet so far, chipped in. “Pliability.”

“Big word, Spangles. Care to elaborate?” asked Tony, pouring heated soup in to a bowl and digging for the smallest spoon he owned. “J,” he said sotto-voce. “Order some kid-sized eating stuff with whatever else you’ve got going.”

“Already done, sir.” Supplied Jarvis helpfully, and Tony went back to spoon hunting.

“No, I get it,” said Bruce. “Pliability. Take someone who’s going to be a big deal someday down the road, keep him beaten, submissive, and completely in the dark about who he is.” His hands gestured, as he got on a train of thought. “Then, later on down the road, you rescue the kid from the very situation you put him in, and bingo – a perfect little puppet who hangs on your every word.”

The entire Avengers crew looked at Banner as if he’d offered to buy a platypus for a treadmill. “Think about it, guys. We just got a mysterious letter from either the enemy or a friend of the kid who couldn’t rescue Harry him or herself. There’s something else going on here.”

“Oh, there is,” muttered Fury. “So, Harry there is Harry James Potter. If you guys remember, or not, the terrorist attacks about 3 or so years back in England, the kid’s parents were in the thick of it.” He paused to take a pull from his coffee as Tony went over to get Harry and brought him to the table to eat.

Fury watched the kid go with Tony and noticed something. “Stark. Ask him if his arm hurts still.” Harry looked at Tony questioningly, not understanding. 

Tony looked at Harry and sat on the floor and pulled Harry in to his lap. “Hey bud. You heard the Bossman. How’s the arm? Still hurting?”

Harry held out the arm with the cast. “’Dis one?” Tony tickled him, eliciting a delighted giggle from Harry. 

“No, silly rabbit. Your other broken arm.” Tony grabbed his good arm and pretended to munch it and made growling noises, which set off Harry in to even more giggles.

“Nono!” giggled the little boy. “No tickles! Your face is scritchy!” and he dutifully held his bum arm up to Tony for inspection. “It don’t hurt at all.” He demonstrated by waving his arm about, nearly clipping Tony in the head.

“Magical healing?” asked Banner, ever the doctor. He watched Harry and Tony closely, and Harry shouldn’t have been able to wave his arm about so soon after it being broken and cast a mere two days ago. The other Avengers were now taking notice, and even the ever-observant Natasha was mildly embarrassed that she missed such an obvious detail. Either the kid was faking it, or he healed fast.

Fury nodded. “Some magicals have the ability to heal a bit faster, they live longer and typically have few illnesses. They’re immune to the common cold, for example. Potter there has displayed some serious power already, but no magical heals quite that fast, which is why he was targeted and his parents were mur…” Tony cleared his throat and interrupted Fury’s next word.

“Marauders!” Harry supplied helpfully. “Pa’foot, Mooney, Pwongs and Wormtail!” and he kept on playing with Tony, who by now had stood (with joints cracking – he was getting too old to be sitting cross-legged on tile floors!) and was carrying Harry over to the table to get him to eat.

“Interesting words, for a little guy,” said Clint. Steve frowned. The kid came up with the craziest things to say, but they probably meant something to him.

“Absolutely they do,” Fury continued. Rogers didn’t realise he’d said his thoughts aloud. “The Mauraders were his dad and his friends. One of them sold the kid’s parents out, and he ended up at his aunt’s, which is what brings us to today.” Everyone’s eyes darkened a bit at this, as they were all aware now of what probably happened in the custody of his relatives.

He took another deep drag of his coffee and continued. “I am bound by magical laws as to what I can and can’t tell you. I’m already pushing it as it is. I originally was going to bury the kid in a SHIELD training program,” the room erupted with this, and Fury put his hand up, “I said WAS! Simmer down. Was. Past-tense.” Over in the kitchen, Tony did his best to keep Harry’s ears away from hearing what was being said. With the soup slurping and occasional giggle, he hoped the kid didn’t understand a damned thing.

Fury continued, “But that note has a very interesting signature to it. It’s the same signature and writing that got us started on rescuing Potter in the first place. Pretty sure I know who it belongs to. He’s tipped us off before and has yet to lead us wrong. He’s not a good guy but not a bad guy either. He hasn’t led me wrong yet and nearly got caught leading us to Privet Drive.” 

Natasha spoke up. “There was a man standing in the distance, just outside the wards you told us about. I couldn’t get a good look at him in the dark, but he was quite tall, very thin and dark longer hair. I thought he was a neighbour, being that he was in a bathrobe of some kind.”

Fury snorted. “Not a bathrobe. Robes. Wizard robes. The wizarding world is trapped in time, especially in England and much of Europe.”

“Time, as in they don’t move forward and never age?” queried Banner. “That doesn’t make sense at all.”

Fury sighed. “No. Time as in, they eschew all tech, completely. They don’t live on power grids, they don’t have computers or internet, use cars, and pretty much live the same as if it were pre-industrial age. Our scanners can’t pick them up through their shielding.”

Clint laughed as he heard Tony mutter, “Eschew? Did he really say ‘eschew’? Oh, prithy, m’lord.” Harry giggled around his soup spoon at his rescuer’s silly face.

“Bottom line is, Potter’s an anomaly. He’s far stronger than any other known wizard alive at this time, as far as our informant can tell, and he would know. He’s also been blatantly stubborn about us not making deals with this Albus Dumbledore, or even attempting to contact him. He’s apparently a supposed White Wizard, behind the scenes leader of the British wizarding world, and Potter’s magical guardian.” 

Fury stopped to take another pull of his coffee before dropping the bomb that would agitate everyone in the room. “He is the one who took Harry from his murdered parents’ house and dropped him on the Dursley’s doorstep in the dead of winter. Potter’s godfather was locked up in a facility, being blamed for their murder and betrayal, the Dark Wizard who did the deed was killed by the little guy slurping soup at the table. He wasn’t even 2 years old yet.”

The room was silent in horror. Fury could see the determination and steel-eyed protection on every single face there. Wizard or not, Dumbledore would have a helluva time getting his paws on that kid. Even Stark had ceased goofing around with Harry and the Director knew that the genius was already designing new tech in his head.

“I know you all have a lot of questions. Quite frankly, I do too. I can’t even begin to answer all of them. I simply don’t know. Our informant, the writer of that note, is hard to connect with due to the lack of technology, but he shows up usually right when I need to pepper him with more questions. If I could have had him show up today, I would have.”

Nick paused to let them absorb the huge amount of crazy he’d just dumped on their laps. “The wizarding world is powerful, like Harry there, though our informant admits that some of the things the kid has done is highly atypical. You all need to be on your guard. They’re capable of pretty much anything and everything, which is how they’ve stayed hidden so long.” 

“I’ll figure it out.” Tony’s determined declaration was reflected on his steely face. The goofball teasing Harry was gone and in it’s place was the genius they all knew so well. “I’ll figure out a way through their damned shielding and we’ll end Harry’s exile. That’s what he is, isn’t he? You’ve exiled him to us?” Tony’s dark brown eyes were nearly black and Fury grinned. This is what he had been after from the start.

“Stark, whatever you want or need, ask. You’ll have it. We’ve been able to do some research on this Dumbledore. He’s about as light as Loki’s heart and very powerful. SHIELD needs your tech now more than ever.” 

Tony smirked. He had a project. He loved nothing more than a project, and this one was the mother of all epic loot drops of projects. “I’ll be in my lab. Make sure little fish is fed, watered, bathed, and kept busy. He won’t ask for what he needs.” The genius pushed away from the table, taking Harry’s empty bowl and cup with him to put in the sink.

Steve volunteered to keep an eye on Harry, and Tony headed to the elevator. Harry got up and followed him causing Stark to stop for a minute and went back to Harry, kneeling down. He gathered the little boy up in a hug. “Hey little bit. I gotta go downstairs for a little while. Bossman there is gonna help us make sure you stay safe. You stay with Cap there and he’ll show you his shield, alright?”

Harry nodded, but obviously wasn’t too thrilled with Tony leaving. “You come back?” the little boy asked tentatively.

“Oh, little man, of course. I’m just going downstairs a little bit. It’s not a good little boy place, no toys, very boring, but after the dangerous stuff is done, you can come down and meet Dum-E and U, okay? You’ll like them. They’re good boys too and help me.”

Harry frowned at that. “I help you!” he declared boldly, then ducked his head on to Tony’s shoulder. He still wasn’t used to be allowed to speak up when he wanted to.

Tony smiled and lifted Harry’s chin with a finger. “You help me more than you already know. You’ll help me in my lab too, a little later, okay?” Harry nodded and tried not to cry. Crying wasn’t allowed. “Good man. Go with Steve for a bit, and he’ll bring you down later.” 

Harry turned and found that Cap was already there and was scooped up in the soldier’s huge arms. Tony went to the waiting elevator and was gone. Bruce had walked over to the pair and it was decided that the trio would head down to medical to x-ray Harry’s arm and see if it really had healed so rapidly.

Fury sighed as the three left to the medical lab. The damned kid grew on you, no matter what and he couldn’t help but like him.

Fury turned around and found the entire room empty, meaning Barton had taken the opportunity to escape through the vent again, and Widow had disappeared as well. Fury found himself alone.

Damned Avengers. Damned kid. He chuckled to himself and left, plots and subplots roiling around in his head. He had a kid to protect and a wizard to tackle.

Just as he was about to step up to the arriving elevator, the doors opened, and he nearly ran face first in to Pepper Potts, Stark’s CEO and whatever muddy relationship they had. 

“Nick!” exclaimed Pepper. “It’s delightful to see you, not that I can by much.” Her arms were full of bags and boxes. Fury did the gentlemanly thing and helped offload some of the baggage.

“Successful shopping trip, I take it?” he asked, as he headed over to the living room. 

Pepper laughed elegantly. “Well, if by successful, you mean following a very strange shopping list of things to buy for a toddler, then I would say so. I have no idea why though.”

“Well, he’s small enough for two, I suppose.” Nick filled in. “But the kid is four. Just a very small four.”

“Ah.” Pepper clued in. “So this is your doing. A little boy in Avenger’s HQ? Nick Fury, what on earth are you getting these guys in to?” Unloaded her parcels, she whirled around on the Director and gave him a look that could melt steel. “You have a child here, with a bunch of testosterone and assassins? And don’t get me started on The Hulk!”

Fury started to back up. He’d not met Potts more than a couple of times and had forgotten that she had a formidable attitude. He guessed it came with the territory of managing one Tony Stark’s life. “Now, just a minute Ms. Potts. This is special. Would you rather he be kept at SHIELD?”

“SHIELD? You can’t keep a kid on a helicarrier!” Just as she was about to ramp up and really unload on Fury, she paused and started to laugh. “Oh. Oh, Nick Fury, that’s just not fair.” Nick full out laughed and Pepper joined him. “Fine. But you’re not training a little boy to be the next Clint Barton.”

And with that, she turned again on her Jimmy Choos, grabbed some of the parcels and started unpacking.

Nick knew better than most when to retreat, and retreat he did – straight to the elevator and left without another word.

Pepper sighed and started sorting through the items she bought, muttering the entire while about idiot Directors messing up little children.

She would have to inspect the situation for herself.


	5. Saving Pepper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper Potts was used to Tony's shenanigans, but a small child in the Avenger's Tower? Someone had better have some answers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to chapter 5!  
> As guessed by pretty much everyone, Pepper is next on the roster to meet little Harry. I apologize in advance though: This chapter is the shortest I've written. I'm horrible at writing women (ironically, as I happen to be one) and Pepper Potts just doesn't inspire me. I see her as such a neutral character (both in the comics and in the MCU), so I had to get inventive. It took everything in my power to not just kill her off or have her & Tony not a couple.  
> But alas, I need a bit of a softer Tony, and she's good for that, for sure.  
> Enjoy!

Pepper Potts was used to odd requests from Tony and Jarvis. This one had her curiosity going through the proverbial ceiling.

She didn’t quite understand why on earth she’d gotten a message from Jarvis to buy clothes for a 2 to 3-year-old boy, right from underwear to shoes and a jacket, as well as sheets and blankets and a toothbrush and everything else one could imagine if a child suddenly appeared naked out of thin air.

Considering Jarvis relayed the message from Steve and Tony, Lord only knows what SHIELD had put the Avengers up to now. She would never get used to it and all the inherit weirdness that seemed to come along with being attached to one Tony Stark and his crazy band of superheroes.

Then she found Nick Fury himself in the Tower, which answered her questions immediately. If SHIELD was involved, anything was fair game.

After giving Nick a piece of her mind and restraining from throwing a shoe at him, he left, and Pepper continued unpacking her purchases. Pepper didn’t know where the baby was sleeping or in whose room, so she left her purchases on the sideboard.

“Jarvis, is Tony in the building?” she asked the AI.

“Yes, Miss Potts. He’s been alerted to your arrival and is on his way up to see you,” Jarvis informed her. “He will collect young Mister Potter from Captain Rogers and bring him up to meet you.”

Pepper was about to ask for more details when the elevator opened and in walked Tony, a tired smile on his face. Tucked in behind his legs, Pepper could just spot a shock of black hair at Tony’s knee level and she smiled and crouched down a fair ways away so they could exit the elevator.

“Hello there,” she greeted softly. “Are you our new guest?”

The head of hair peeked out from behind Tony and Pepper caught sight of a sweet little face and green eyes to go with the bird’s nest of black hair. Tony grinned and turned around to watch Harry. He saw Harry go completed rigid and prepared for a teleportation, but then he clued in and understood suddenly what had happened as Harry spoke.

The little boy’s eyes began to pool with tears. “Mama?” came a confused little whisper. “Mama, you came?” 

“Oh, dear heart,” murmured Pepper. “No sweetie. I’m not. She must have looked an awful lot like me for you to say so.”

Tony sat on the floor cross-legged near Pepper and pulled Harry into his lap as Pepper leaned over to wipe Harry’s tears away. “Hey munchkin,” said Tony. “This is Pepper. She’s got red hair like your mom, and I promise she has the best hugs you’ve ever had.”

Harry pressed his back into Tony’s chest and tried his best not to cry. With a little hiccough, he took a breath and remembered his manners. “Hullo Misses Pepper,” and Pepper’s heart just cracked. 

The little boy’s accent and that devastated face absolutely undid her. She folded up her legs and sat on the floor with Tony and held her arms out. Immediately, she had her arms full of sobbing little boy. She had absolutely no idea who he was or what he’d been through, but he needed a mom right this moment. She’d be damned if she’d deny him that simple comfort.

Tony watched silently and with a heavy heart as Harry finally found the release he so badly needed. The little guy was full out sobbing, the most emotion he’d shown since Tony first dug him out of that filthy, stinking cupboard.

It had to happen sometime, and Tony was grateful it was now with just the three of them, and not much later. The kid had been forced to be so emotionless in his short little life. Tony knew all too well how that could turn out, let alone having to go through with so many sudden changes.

Harry’s sobs started to simmer down in to little hiccoughs and sniffles as Pepper rocked him back and forth, rubbing his back and making soothing noises. Eventually, he quieted and fell asleep on Pepper’s shoulder, exhausted. She couldn’t help but feel that he was very light and thin for a little boy and knew Tony would fill her in eventually.

“Tony,” Pepper whispered. “Help me up. Actually, take my pumps off for me, then help me up.”

He did exactly that, his own knees cricking and his foot tingling from having fallen asleep. He quietly led Pepper to his own suite, and they put Harry on the sofa with a blanket. Harry curled up in a ball under the blanket and continued sleeping.

“Poor little gaffer didn’t even wake up.” Tony pulled the blanket up to the boy’s chin and gently pushed Harry’s hair away from his eyes.

“He’s exhausted Tony, and there’s no way he’s only two years old. He talks too well. He’s so thin, poor thing.” They walked away from the sofa to the other end of the room and sat down on the soft chairs near Tony’s fireplace. Tony quietly asked Jarvis to light the fireplace, and it flared up to give up some welcome heat.

“Okay Anthony Stark. Explain. Now.” Pepper’s face had switched from being soft and concerned to hellfire. “How the hell do you have a toddler in the tower?”

“Easy, Pep. He’s not a toddler. He’s 4. From what Jarvis dug up on him, his parents and relatives, he’s well on his way to 5, and he’s here because we found him stuffed in a mop closet, abused and starved.” Pepper gasped and her eyes flicked back to Harry. 

“Who would do such a thing?” She was too stunned to even finish her sentence. 

“His aunt and uncle. It’s a bit of a weird story, but Fury got a request from someone who knows the kid and pretty much demanded help.” Tony tried to explain without mentioning magic. All the Avengers had been heavily warned about the Statue of Secrecy, though in Tony’s opinion, they could take their damned Statute and stuff it up their ass, if this is what they allowed happen to their supposed hero.

“Exactly who tipped Fury off is classified. Well, until Jarvis finds it, anyway.” Tony smirked and Pepper tried not to roll her eyes. “Oh, Pep,” Tony moaned. “I was the one who pulled him out of that effing closet. It stank like death. He was covered in a smell that took us three baths to get off him.” Pepper couldn’t begin to imagine the nightmare that Harry went through.

Pepper listened with a mixture of anger, horror and pity, and Tony’s eyes grew distant as he remembered. “All he wanted was to leave. He was ready to fight and tried to bite me, the little bugger, even though he was terrified out of his mind.” Tony sighed. “Yet he went with me. He’d never seen me before, but he willingly came, which says a lot about how he felt about his so-called home.” Tony waffled between jumping in to his suit and nuking the damned house to just going for the hope that Harry’s relatives would burn in hell someday. Then again, Thor hadn't been around yet. That would be interesting.

“Pep, it was worse than the cave in Afghanistan. He’s so little. He doesn’t ask for food or to go to sleep. Hell, he doesn’t even ask to go pee because he’s scared that we’ll hit him for simple requests.” Tony sighed and wiped his hands across his eyes. “He didn’t have clean clothes or even clothes that fit and the doc said his teeth have never seen a toothbrush. We don’t think he’s ever had a toy and I didn’t see any shoes in that cupboard. His bed was made from discarded egg cartons, for crissake.”

Pepper had tears rolling down her face at this point, she could hardly bear to hear more but knew Tony needed to get this off his chest as much as she morbidly wanted to know everything. She reached out her hand and he grasped it gratefully. 

“I doubt he knows his numbers. I doubt he knows what love is. I doubt he’s ever slept in a bed. I doubt he’s ever felt safe a day in his life, and I sure as hell doubt he’s cried until today. He’s so damaged, but he’s incredibly smart and strong.” Tony paused and grinned. “He took Cap down in less than an hour. I’ve never seen Cap sleep like that. He’s got Brucie and even Hulk wrapped around his little finger.” Pepper’s eyes widened at that, but Tony waved her question off.

“Hell, even Fury melts in a puddle with him. He charms everyone. He’s, well, sweet. Just about makes your teeth rot. Oh, I need to take him to a dentist, speaking of teeth. And a lot of other checkups he should have had and never has.” Tony’s attention wandered off for a moment as he realised that the kid needed a pediatrician, a dentist and probably a preschool.

Pepper shifted in her chair and tucked her legs up underneath her. “Does SHIELD have custody?” She asked Tony. 

He looked at Pepper, his mood darkening as the genius quickly processed his options. “No idea. I hope not. We took him from his home. I highly doubt custody has been established already.” Tony replayed Fury’s conversation in his head and figured to hell with it. Pepper was his Pep. Fury had to know he’d tell her eventually.

“He has a guardian. A magical guardian. He’s a special kid, Pepper Pot. He’s got powers that we haven’t even begun to figure out yet.” Pepper looked back over at the sleeping boy, as if she could stare through him and see magic. 

“Magical? What do you mean, Tony? Rabbits out of hats magical?” she asked, trying to sort out where Harry fit in the world.

Tony sighed again, his exhaustion and lack of sleep showing well on his face. “No. Real magic. So far, we’ve noticed that he heals crazy fast, teleports, and can move stuff around with just thinking about it. He did it to Clint’s arrows, had them dancing. Brucie and I are sure that he probably doesn’t get sick either because quite honestly, as bad of a shape as we found him in, he shouldn’t have survived starvation like that at his age.” His thumb stroked the back of Pepper’s hand as her face reflected the pain and reality of what Tony was saying.

“He needs feeding up. And a bed. He spent two nights in the SHIELD med bed, then used Capsicle for a pillow last night.” Tony looked Pepper straight in the eyes. “I want him, Pep. I want him bad. No kid deserves this.”

Pepper’s heart crumbled a little bit more at what Tony was saying. “Tony, he’s not a puppy. I love you to death and back, you know that.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis. “But Tony, you’re an unmedicated bipolar, insomniac, alcoholic, workaholic with a heart of gold that’s bigger than he knows. Harry needs to be loved every day, not just on the days when he’s being cute.” Tony’s face darkened somewhat. Sure, Pepper was right, but damn, he hated it when she was verbally throwing daggers.

Tony was quiet for a moment, then muttered, “I’ll go into treatment. For him, I would.”

Pepper stared back at him, incredulously. “What? No, that’s not what I meant Tony. That’s a conversation for another day, but Tony, he’s not a perfect kid. He’s adorable today. He won’t be when he’s 8 or 12 or 16.” She saw Tony’s face start to get stormy and knew she’d hit a sore spot.

“Just don’t, Pep. Not this time. You wanna leave him to SHIELD or to whatever weirdo they have in England who sold him off to his relatives? We can do better. I can do better!” Tony found himself standing, vehemently trying to convince Pepper that sudden parenthood was what was needed.

“Tony,” Pepper started, standing up as well.

“No. You don’t get it Pepper. This isn’t for me. This isn’t about collecting the cute kid and winning. This is about a little guy who’s had no fucking chance in the world at all. None.” Tony pointed over to Harry, who was still dead asleep on the other side of the room.

“This is for Harry, Pepper, he can’t go back there. We care about him a ton already. Hell, Cap himself would tear apart the planet if Harry was removed from us. There are six Avengers.” Tony’s brain was already putting together plans faster than his mouth could spit them out. “We work together. All of us. You, if you want to. Happy too. Rhodey would never turn a kid down. We raise him to be a decent kid. It won’t be perfect, but not one person here would lay a hand on him in anger, and you know it.” Tony reached for his phone in his pocket and was already emailing his lawyers.

Pepper sat back down and sighed. “I can’t stop you Tony, but I’ll be watching. You won’t be able to hide in your lab for days of no sleep anymore. The drinking will have to slow down, if not outright stop.”

Not looking up from his phone, Tony said “Four days.”

Pepper looked up at him. “What?”

“Four days,” Tony repeated, looking up from his email. “I haven’t touched a drop in four days. That kid could cure cancer, I swear. Every particle in my being screams to protect him with everything I’ve got. The Avengers are everything I’ve got. With dividends and residuals and licensing and perpetuity fees, I can’t even run out of money. He’ll lack for nothing, which is more than most of us ever got. I had money growing up but I didn’t have a dad worth mentioning. I can be his dad, if he wants me to. I can, Pepper. I’m better than his fucking relatives.” Tony was breathing heavily, almost panicking that Pepper would kybosh the entire thing.

Pepper sighed, resigned to let Tony off the hook. Though not a perfect solution, she couldn’t resist that passion. “He’s irresistible, isn’t he?” she said as she walked back over to where Harry was sleeping. With a soft smile, she pulled his blanket up higher and carefully stroked his soft hair. Harry muttered a bit in his sleep as he frowned, then dreamland captured him once more and his face evened out.

“Yeah,” agreed Tony as he walked up and stood beside her. He put his arm around her, and she leaned into Tony and lifted her face for a kiss. Tony acquiesced, then laid his head on the top of hers. “His world won’t be perfect, but he’ll be loved."

Pepper smiled. “Oh, he already is, the little charmer.”

She had absolutely no idea where this would end up. It could backfire spectacularly. Harry would need help to move forward, but he was so young that she hoped not much damage would be done. Tony would need help too, but she and Roadie had an unspoken promise that they’d always see Tony through whatever hyper crazy idea was next. They hadn’t failed yet, and they were not about to start now, especially now that Tony, who’d resisted kids as long as she’d known him, suddenly saw himself as Father of the Year. This was going to be spectacular, all right. Only which end of that spectrum wouldn’t be seen for a few years yet.

Tony had no idea where this was going either, but he damned well knew he wasn’t letting Harry go. No way, no how. Fury could take a long walk off a short pier if he even tried.

“Pep?” Tony said softly.

“Hmm?” she looked up at Tony and lifted her head off his shoulder.

Tony smiled a rare genuine smile at her. “Thanks. Really.”

She smiled back. “Always.” Then she laughed gently. “But you’re explaining this to Rhodey the next time he’s around.”

Tony laughed. “Leave my platypus to Harry. Rhodey won’t stand a chance.”

Pepper smiled and the two headed off to bed.


	6. Intermission - Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An intermission chapter to help bridge what is coming - Loki is up to his usual shenanigans, and the game is afoot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While not a 'saving' chapter, this intermission was sorely needed (and planned!) to help advance the plot, and to introduce our favourite villain - finally. Many of you have asked, some have guessed, and I have laughed long & hard at some of the reviews on here and ff.net that have eluded to this.   
> This chapter has been written for quite some time, and I'm delighted to finally present it.

Five years before Harry’s rescue:

There were many things that displeased Loki. High up on that list was failure, though he felt he failed at everything in life, at times. Despite his brother being, well, his brother and friend, they were so far apart in personality that Loki felt like an outcast. He also severely loathed being bored.

Loki was bored.

Loki being Loki, he had to get his life’s joys in somewhere. Sparring with Thor was about as exciting as licking worms (then again, there were some worms on Vanaheim that could be quite exciting when licked), especially when he wasn’t allowed to use magic. Where was the fairness in fighting without his magic when Thor had the strength to pulverize boulders to powder?

It had been a century or two since he had stirred up some true fun. He was well overdue, and therefore he headed to a planet outside of the Nine that he hadn’t been to in quite some time called Midgard.

By sheer luck (or the Norns had developed a sudden sense of humour), Loki had discovered some of his progeny on Midgard.

Sure, he’d had his dalliances now and then, but Æsir seed did not match all that well with mortals, especially humans. It made for, er, well, rather risk-free dalliances, which meant that somehow, he’d coupled with a woman who had an extraordinary bloodline and somehow produced live descendants. Even more amazing, there was still one living with blood strong enough that he could sense him or her.

Therefore, he took a back path (no need for Heimdall to interfere after all, or tattle to his father Odin) to Midgard and found himself in Britain watching a group of adults. Loki’s spell work was perfect as always, and he had managed to teleport quite accurately following the pull this person made on his magic. Odd that Thor did not pull on him such. Perhaps because they were siblings and not parents of the other. He would have to research that some day in the libraries of Asgard.

The group of adults were at a treeline, and they were fighting with magic, of all things. Loki wasn’t aware that Midgard had progressed to the point of using more precise magic. Well, the wands were a bit ridiculous, but considering humanity on this planet was still relatively young, he could forgive a few things.

Maintaining his invisibility, he sent out tendrils of his own magic so he could ascertain which of these humans were his progeny, albeit watered down for a few generations. He was delighted to be proven right when his magic identified a flame-haired she-witch, calling out spells amongst several others that appeared to be fighting with her. In turn, they were fighting against a group of black-robed figures with bone-white masks covering their faces.

The entire fight was amusing Loki. If only they knew what they could potentially due with their magic, yet they used crutches of words and wands. His eyes went back to the flame-haired woman. He was utterly fascinated by her as she spat out Latin, her red hair flying about her as she darted here and there, casting spells. She was fast, faster than her companions, and her spells were quite strong.

Another delight was to see that she was very adept at transfiguring things and using illusions. Those things was a particular talent of his, and he wondered if it was something he’d passed down to her through her parentage, whatever it may be.

He maintained his invisibility as he watched the battle until it turned in to his (granddaughter’s? or perhaps several greats? He would likely never know) favour. With a hollered ‘stupify!’, one of the black-robed men hit the ground and the rest vanished with loud popping sounds.

Ever the more curious, Loki stayed to watch when his descendant ran forward to the downed figure. One of the men in the group called out for her to stop, giving Loki the name of the woman – Lily. Such a mundane name for one of his progeny. 

Loki figured that she couldn’t be more than perhaps a great-granddaughter, and quite young as well. The seidr was strong within her, and curiously, he sensed a life within her. Her child was already incredibly powerful, and he was highly intrigued. 

Strangely, he was also sensing Asgardian magic from the figure on the ground. Not just seidr, but Æsir, of the royal line. How intrinsically odd. Now he knew for certain that the Norns were laughing at him, with their sick sense of humour.

Loki listened in, as there was some debate as to whether the group should wake the unconscious man or not. In the end, he was bound, levitated, and the entire group teleported away.

Loki winced at the sheer racket all the cracking from teleporting created. With all of the magic they held, they used it no better than a knuckle-dragging troglodyte. Alas, there was little he could or even wanted to do about that.

The god extended a tendril of his own magic to feel where they had teleported to and followed, focusing on keeping his invisibility active from both the mortals and keep himself hidden from Heimdall.

______________________________________

James Potter, his pregnant wife Lily, their best friend Sirius Black and James’ co-worker from the Ministry, Frank Longbottom, all apparated to Godric’s Hollow with their stunned and trussed cargo.

“On the couch,” ordered James, and Frank gently levitated the unconscious man there. Lily was already putting up privacy wards and Sirius was blackening the windows. The Fidelius charm was up and active but this was too important to risk for any one of them. The extra precaution was likely not needed, but just the same, they ensured privacy. To reveal their secret would mean death.

“Okay Lily, we’re good,” Black said as he moved into the kitchen in search for food for them all.

Lily waved her wand and the bindings dissolved. She followed up with a whispered ‘rennervate’ and the figured moaned as Lily gently pulled his mask off.

“Sev? Are you alright?” The man moaned again as his aches and pains came to the forefront, but luckily, he was not gravely injured.

Loki observed silently from a darker corner of the living room, highly curious. As far as he could tell, there were three aliens in the room, not including himself. The woman was very obviously related to him, despite her shock of red hair. Those eyes were blatantly his and he could feel both Aesir heritage and strangely, Jötunn. That was different. Had Loki mated with a Jötunn? He certainly didn’t recall such. The Aesir in her blood was heavily watered down, though the Jötunn was stronger. Curiouser and curiouser, Loki thought and filed it away for investigation another day.

What had him thricely curious was the babe she carried within her. The life force was so very new that she was unlikely to even know of it, yet it was extremely powerful. Loki could easily sense Jötunn blood in the babe, as well as very strong Aesir – stronger than it’s mother.

Loki’s thoughts ran rampant. This was all so very odd, as the man who was married to Lily was a boring mortal. The god was positive that there was nothing in his blood other than standard issue human with a touch of wizardry. There was nothing remarkable about him except an astounding lack of hair care.

To Loki’s surprise, the man on the couch reached up to the redheaded woman and pulled her into an embrace, where she sobbed on his shoulder.

Loki smirked. The mystery of the parentage of the unborn child was solved in his mind. He wondered if the mortal Wizard knew his wife was carrying the other man’s child?

Oh, this was a sheer delight! Much mischief to be had, and he didn’t even directly create it, but he certainly could carry it much farther.

He would return at a later date when the child was no longer in its mother’s womb. Power like that could absolutely not be ignored. Imagine, a child of his, that powerful, using a stupid wand? Not in his lifetime.

He would be back once the child had evacuated its mother’s womb. Oh, yes. He wasn’t missing this for anything.

_______________________________

The god of Mischief had timed his arrival to near perfection. The woman was in the last throes of childbirth, though she was being relatively quiet about it, much to Loki’s appreciation. The usual grunts and groans intermixed with panting, but mercifully not screaming. Loki had never been a fan of pain and suffering and screaming set his sensitive ears on edge.

There was a matron in white robes and a wimple attending her, and surprisingly, the man that was captured when Loki was here seven or so months ago, but not the mortal husband. How odd. Perhaps their infidelities had been found out?

Loki would love to touch the man’s mind but being that this ‘Sev’ person had Asgardian blood, he didn’t dare take the risk of being discovered. Loki was positive that this man’s immortal blood was quite strong and quite possibly a full Asgardian, though he certainly didn’t look like one. Despite such, the god was glad that this 'Sev' was distracted by the birth of his child. 

He was about to step a bit closer when there was a mighty cry from the woman and the midwife started giving instructions that Loki tuned out. Birth was women’s work and he wanted nothing to do with it. He had zero interest in seeing the nether regions of his however many times removed granddaughter, but he was drawn to what it was producing like a moth to flame. 

With a final cry, the babe was born, and a flurry of activity ensued that both the matron and the man were involved with. 

Loki finally got a glimpse of the babe and to his horror, it was blue, with very distinct markings. The others in the room simply thought the child needed oxygen, but Loki knew far better. He could sense the Jötunn blood in the child, and the blue with those markings were nowhere else in the universe that he knew of other than amongst the Jötnar.

A flick of his hand and the blue faded immediately, bleeding to what Loki felt was colouring that would have the child looking like it’s parents and therefore alleviating any suspicions. 

Though Loki could not see his (it was very obviously a boy at this point) eyes, he took no chances and his seidr turned them a light blue that would go green later. He couldn’t help but put his personal stamp on the child – those eyes would not be the mossy green of his mother, but the emerald green of Loki himself. Not only was that colour Loki’s personal colour and his favourite, it would mark the child as his progeny, however far removed down the bloodline.

Loki paused for a moment to admire his handiwork. The mortals seemed satisfied that the child was hale and hearty, and oh yes, he could feel extremely strong magic flowing through the babe already. A grin spread across his face marking his triumph.

The god was delighted and intrigued with all he would teach his grandson, for he would find a way to do so without alerting Heimdall or the Asgardians in the room. 

He tuned his ears back into the conversation and tried not to gag at the horrifically mortal name they saddled the baby with. The boy was swaddled and placed in his mother’s arms where his eyes were very alert, for a newborn. He briefly cried when born but had been silent and watching ever since. Clever child. Loki was a father several times over, and even though it had been several centuries since his last, he knew the level of alertness the child was displaying was unusual.

Oh, how he would love to take the babe right at this moment! Alas, his patience would have to be stretched before he was rewarded.

He left and determined to return in a few days when the household would be sleeping.

__________________________

Loki returned two nights later, slipping through paths he knew very few could follow him through, especially a certain pair of electric orange all-seeing eyes.

He crept up to the crib where the child lay, in the same room as his parents. Wait, no – it was Lily and the mortal Potter in the bed. He gave up on trying to sort out the relationship between the three adults. He didn’t exactly care anyway; it was the boy he was after. Harry. He tried not to shudder at the stupid name.

A gentle dust of his green-tinged magic floated over the couple to ensure they did not wake, and he picked up the boy from his crib.

The child’s eyes flickered open and Loki was pleased to see the emerald colouring already setting in, though they were a pale sage at this point.

The god gently placed one hand on the child’s chest, and he smiled. Oh, yes. His smile broadened into a grin of delight. With contact this close, he could feel genuine seidr and the icy power of the Jötunn equally strong, like a raging current in the child’s veins (he refused to use the horrible moniker the babe had been saddled with!). 

Loki nearly laughed out loud at his discovery, and he realised that his plots and plans were going to be even more spectacular than he could ever hope and dream.

He walked over to the rocking chair in the corner with the babe in his arms and sat down. He rocked the child gently while the child’s eyes studied him, like he was a specimen. Loki smiled gently at him and then started to sing a nonsensical song his mother used to sing to him when he couldn’t sleep as a child himself. 

He would ensure that his grandson knew of him as best he could without giving away his identity, so that they would always have a connection. He needed to return to Asgard before he was missed, and to do some hunting as to how the child was carrying Jötunn blood.

After some time, the babe fell asleep without a fuss and Loki returned him to his crib and departed. He had some research to do.


	7. Saving Rhodey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally meets Colonel James Rhodes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, my readers, I apologize for taking so long to update! This chapter fought me tooth & claw. There are hints in here of what's going on in the background and a bit of plot between Tony & Rhodey. Have fun clue hunting. On the upside, I also give you a really REALLY long chapter. This one just took a long time and several copies were deleted and started over. Due to the last chapter, I had to be pretty careful what I put in this one, or I'd spoil everything!  
> Enjoy. :)

Tony Stark was a man of decisive action.  Granted, not all his decisions were stellar, but as a genius, his decisions always made perfectly logical sense to him.

One could not disparage that his decisions had made him ridiculously wealthy (in-between the ones that nearly got him killed, mind you). Whereas the typical outsider considered him a playboy idiot riding on daddy’s coattails, investors and the business world knew the truth: his genius had more than doubled his father’s wealth, and the legacy had been greatly enhanced by Howard’s son.

Without Tony’s brain, Stark Industries would have stagnated and became a shadow of what it was. Even as such, Tony knew that there were those without whom he would not even be alive today.

Pepper Potts was one of those people. He loved her dearly, though he often screwed it up with her. Yet, she stood by him, thick and thin (and a lot more of the thin sometimes than thick, he had to admit to himself), and he adored her for it.

Happy Hogan had literally saved him, more than once. Happy was getting older and, well, thicker, and as far as bodyguards went, Tony far outstripped him in self-defense. Even out of the Iron Man suit, Tony was far from defenseless. As such, Happy should have been replaced years ago, but Tony couldn’t do it. Happy was a good friend, an excellent poker buddy, hid him when he needed to hide from Pepper’s wrath, and all-around dead useful. He owed Happy a great deal.

And then there was Rhodey. His best friend of all best friends, his platypus, his honey bear, his boo. They’d survived MIT together, despite the large age difference. Whenever Tony was lost, regardless of if physically or mentally, Rhodey was always there. He kept nothing from Rhodey, ever. He tolerated Tony more than even Pepper did, and she tolerated a helluva lot from Tony.

Rhodey had picked and patched Tony up for at least the past thirty-ish years, and yet of this one thing, he was a bit terrified: How to tell Colonel Rhodes that he was in possession of a 4-year-old magical child? A child that wasn’t exactly pinging on the statistical norm in any which way?

Tony trusted Rhodey with his life, and knew he would never hurt a child, but Rhodey was also a military man, a career military man, and as such, Tony was leery of telling Rhodey of the magical world. He wasn’t even sure he could.

Tony and Pepper had already started the process of legally adopting Harry, along with help from Fury. He could no more hide Harry’s existence from Rhodey than fly to the moon. Well, until Mark 56 was completed, but neither Pepper nor Rhodey needed to know about that one.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Steve startled Tony from his thinking and he nearly jumped out of his chair. Tony slammed the palm of his hand over the Arc reactor in his chest.

“Good lord, you’re supposed to be the old man who’ll have a heart attack, not giving me one!”

Steve laughed easily at his pseudo friend and took the comment in the jest it was meant to be. “Sorry Tony. Just making sure your heart is still ticking.” Tony settled himself back down and looked at the Avengers’ leader. A thoughtful look crossed his face.

“Forgiven, but now you have to sit and listen, military guy.” Steve was curious. His relationship with Tony was hot and cold. They never seemed to be able to find a happy medium. Nat called them testosterone-loaded alpha males, and occasionally, when they were arguing, she called them knuckle-dragging troglodytes. Alas, they had united over Harry and had been doing better, especially as Tony seemed to have been adopted by Harry as a father figure, and Steve was the boy’s favourite uncle and babysitter.

“Alright,” said Steve. “What’s on your mind?” Steve figured it had something to do with Harry. Tony would never have started a semi-serious conversation with him otherwise.

Tony laid his thoughts out plainly for Steve, in his usual delivery of staccato, as well as his concerns over the military finding out about the magical world. Once Tony finished, Steve stayed quiet for a few moments and contemplated the rather serious ramifications of what Tony had said. He was amazed that Tony had been dead honest with him and genuine. Miracles did happen after all.

“Well?!” said Tony, impatiently after he perceived Steve was taking way too long to think it all over.

Steve sighed. “Well, you’re not wrong, of course,” started Steve. Tony snorted. “Have you considered talking to Fury?” Tony’s hadn’t. He wasn’t a fan of the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. “He might know how to get in touch with this British magical community and see what they have to say about it. Then, we don’t have an international incident to deal with.”

“Smashing idea,” chirped Tony cheerfully. “Tally-ho, toodle pip. Let’s call in the Brits!” and within seconds, he was on his cellphone, texting. Tony didn’t like Nick Fury, but he had his uses and Steve was correct. Fury was a jackass of a pirate, but he wouldn’t sell Harry out. He’d bring the entire Avengers team on his head if he did, and Tony would bet all of his Iron Man suits that Fury knew this. Besides, Fury would never have had the Avengers pull Harry out of that disgusting hellhole if he intended to betray the boy.

Steve and Tony chatted for less than two minutes when Jarvis alerted Tony to a call from the Director. “Hah! Put him through, J,” Tony requested, and Jarvis did so.

A couple of seconds passed and then Fury’s “Stark. The hell is this about?” came over the intercom as Tony flicked his phone to throw Fury’s video image up so all three could see and hear each other.

“Hey, Nicky, you dear pirate, you.” Steve shook his head at Tony and went to put a pot of coffee on. Tony and Fury required coffee, as they both delighted in winding the other up to a stalemate. “I gotta tell Rhodey about Harry. We’re bound by the statue thingie of magic secrets or whatever and I don’t want my man bits to be turned to in a squirrel or something.” Tony followed his nose into the kitchen area and was delighted to find coffee in the works.

“You can’t, Stark. I don’t know what the consequences are for a breech in the Statute, but I’ve communicated somewhat with the person who tipped us off to rescue Harry.” Fury dropped that bomb with a smug grin. Fury 1: Tony 0.

Tony startled at the declaration. “Wait, the wizard person or whatever, you’ve communicated more? Since we pulled Harry out?”

Fury’s virtual head nodded in agreement. “It was a condition of the Avengers taking Harry away from the Dursleys. He, and from his writing and language, I’m positive he’s a he, rarely answers, and when he does, it’s on his own terms and timeline.” Fury paused for a minute before continuing. He could spend more time winding Tony up but for once, Tony was being forthcoming, and Fury knew when to pick his battles better than anyone.

“Best I can do is send him a note and tell him about Rhodes. He’s military, Stark. If he doesn’t agree, they have the ability to wipe memories. Don’t push this, let me handle it.”

Tony took a long pull of his freshly poured coffee while Steve poured one for himself and sat at the breakfast bar. “I don’t really have a choice here, do I? I don’t know this guy, and Jarvis can’t find a record of anything magical anywhere. I know you keep these little chats on paper, and that’s about it.”

“No, you don’t, and I have no idea when or even if he will answer, so don’t pester me about it.”

Tony smiled into his coffee. “No pestering from me. Check.” Fury 1: Tony 1. He might not bug Fury about it, but someone else could.

“If that’s all, Stark?” Fury asked, rather impatiently.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, for now, considering I’m not allowed to pester.”

Fury sighed heavily. “Bye, Stark.” Jarvis cut the connection and let Tony know it was concluded.

“He’s not stupid, you know,” Steve said as he drained the last of his coffee. He wasn’t a rabid fan like Tony and Natasha, but sometimes, coffee just hit the spot.

“Oh, I know,” replied Tony. “But you and I both know he left that open for a reason, and I plan to abuse it.”

 

_________________________________

 

Colonel James Rhodes, or Rhodey to his friends, was a man who got things done. If you wanted something done in a hurry, you called Rhodey in. He had plenty of acquaintances, a crazy amount of contacts, and very few friends. When he graduated from high school, he went to MIT. Only the best went there, and he was one of the best.

He nearly burst out laughing when he ran into a 13-year-old kid as a student. Like everyone else, he thought it was a joke, perhaps some proff’s kid. He found out in a hurry that Mr. Tony Stark was a genius to a level he could never understand. The kid was brilliant, slightly south of sane and had a raging case of verbal diarrhea for pretty much all topics. Despite the age difference, they were best friends within a week and inseparable shortly thereafter.

Rhodey also discovered that Tony was broken, nearly beyond repair. Already drinking booze and womanizing at his young age, he also realised another thing: alcohol was the one thing that slowed Tony down enough so mere mortals like James could even remotely begin to understand his brain. It was a horrible coping mechanism and despite trying for nearly 3 years to find Tony’s stash and throw it out, by the time Tony graduated at the ripe old age of 15 with Rhodey still having a year to go himself, he’d resigned himself to the fact that his best friend was not only 7 years younger than he was, but he was a self-admitted alcoholic with no sense of self-preservation and would likely die before he saw 40.

The ironic thing was, Rhodey couldn’t help but love the guy. Tony, for all his shortcomings and failures, was insanely loyal to James, and James returned the feeling. Eventually, Tony had to step up and run Stark Industries when his parents were killed in a car wreck, and Rhodey went full-time into the military.

They kept in touch through the years, closer than brothers, and despite Tony’s ridiculous playboy lifestyle that Rhodey couldn’t even remotely relate to, Tony slowly grew up and started to mature. There was a horrible bad patch after Afghanistan (oh, how James nearly died himself from worry!), and an even worse patch after the Chitauri invasion, but eventually Tony started to conquer his demons.

James felt that he owed Pepper Potts the moon on a platter for surviving those two episodes. Pepper was a trooper for putting up with Tony like she had, and Tony rewarded her by treating her like crap over the years. In the past year or so, it was obvious they were on the good again, and Rhodey was relieved at that. Recently though, something had changed. Very recently. The tone of Stark’s text messages and video chats had utterly changed. Tony was almost, if he dared use such a horrible word around Tony, peaceful, and yet full of secrets. There was something off, but he couldn’t figure it out and Tony wasn’t talking.

Rhodey was sitting at his desk in his condo apartment, slowly drinking a cup of coffee while he pondered his best friend. He’d clearly noticed that Tony’s behaviour was cycling again, something was on the inventor’s mind that was distracting him from his usual insanity.

Come to think of it, in any video call, he hadn’t seen an alcoholic drink in Tony’s hands in a few weeks. Something had happened, and it was more than Pepper. He was curious, but how did a guy bring that up? Then again, this was Tony. Tones. Tone-ee. His bestie. Tony never denied him anything and rarely, if ever, lied to him. Avoid the truth, sidestep and misdirect? Absolutely. But outright lie? Not to him. As messed up as Tony was, Rhodey trusted him with his life, despite Tony’s hatred of authority figures -military included.

James leaned towards his laptop and queued up the video call app but couldn’t bring himself to hit ‘call’. What if he was wrong? Nothing peeved his friend more than when people called to check up on him. Tony considered it babysitting and an invasion of his personal space. Then again, ticking off Tony would be worth it, and besides, they always forgave each other.

He clicked on ‘call’ and waited for the connection.

 

__________________________________

 

Severus Snape read the short letter from Nick Fury and snorted in derision. When he set S.H.I.E.L.D. on Harry, it was under some very strict conditions, or be obliviated: Under no circumstances could Nick tell anyone else about the magical world with the exception of the Avengers, and Harry was to be kept with the Avengers and not kept by S.H.I.E.L.D. for future Agent status. Fury was also forbidden to use Severus’ actual name around a single one of the Avengers and crew. If it ever got back to Dumbledore what Snape had done, the entire farce would be tits up and the entire scheme for naught, for it would mean Harry’s death.

Harry was under a Fidelus, not that Fury was told that. The Avengers - and for two of them, their significant others- were incapable of telling anyone else that Harry or the magical world existed. There were 5 others involved in medically treating Harry after his rescue, and he had done the _obliviate_ to their brains himself, and then scanned their memories to ensure it took properly.

Yet here in his hands, Fury was asking permission to tell the military about Harry. Oh, not the entire military, just a Colonel who had the ear of the President of the United States. Humans were dunderheads, and the proof was in his hand.

Apparently, Tony Stark had a best friend, and there was no way to hide Harry from him. Considering that the Colonel had not been in under the original spellwork, Severus had no way to include him from a distance and Fury hadn’t mentioned him as being in the need to know right that moment. The problem with that, is that he would rather die his hair neon orange than be face to face with any of the Avengers, especially Banner. Fury he could handle, so long as he avoided the man’s little tech gadgets.

Yet he had no choice. He would do nearly anything to ensure Harry was raised in safety and a long way away from the Dursleys or anyone who would hurt him. He’d even considered bringing Harry to Hogwarts and hiding him there, but Dumbledore would find out. In Snape’s mind, that would have been a disaster. As it is, he’d had to do some fast thinking to explain his odd absences away to Dumbledore, and dreaded the day when Dumbledore realised that Harry Potter was no longer at the Dursleys, let alone not even on this side of the pond.

Therefore, he had a choice to make. He could certainly deny Fury’s request. He’d made no further promises to Fury and had extracted far more promises from the man than he’d given in return. Alas, one of the promises was to help when asked, and he had been asked.

Additionally, Fury had asked on Stark’s behalf, and he begrudgingly liked the Man of Iron. There was a myriad of reasons for this of course, but Fury had let him know that Tony was petitioning for custody and adoption of Harry. Short of raising the boy himself, Snape could acquiesce that Stark was a good match, messed up as he was. Then again, a bar of soap would do a better job of raising Harry than the Dursleys. With his approval, he’d helped Fury where he could with the adoption process, as it wasn’t the easiest thing to do between two countries. Fortunately, Snape had magical power as opposed to Fury’s clout.

Fury had no way to locate him, of that he was certain. He had no desire to tangle with S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Once was enough for anyone, therefore in order to meet with this Colonel Rhodes, it would have to be a neutral location and one that he could control to carefully ward.

Luckily, he knew of a place that was somewhat hidden, easily warded, and in New York. The farther he kept S.H.I.E.L.D.  from Hogwarts, the better.

He sent the missive to Fury to meet him 5 hours hence, which would take care of the time difference, and set out for New York.

 

______________________________

 

Rhodey landed in the park with a metallic thud of his suit landing. Before he stepped out, he looked around. Lenape Playground was the meeting place, and it was quite heavily wooded. It made it somewhat difficult to tell if anyone was around, so he did a scan of the area, though it didn’t turn up anything extraordinary. He relayed that information to his earpiece as he stepped out of his suit to take a seat on the designated bench. He knew Fury would be just around the corner from where he’d landed, and sure enough, Nick stepped away from behind a tree.

“Rhodes. Glad you could make it.” Rhodey stuck his hand out and Fury shook it. “Snape should be here any moment.” Both men took to silence while waiting, but they didn’t have to wait long.

Severus Snape slid out from a small gap between two trees, his magic giving off a very pale shimmer of green, as if he’d been standing there the entire time. Rhodes mentally shrugged. For all he knew, the wizard had been invisible. The life-long military man had seen so much in his life but seeing someone appear from nothing was truly new and fascinating, though Snape looked about as friendly as a cactus.

James took in the long and lanky black hair, tall thin frame clothed in sensible black trousers and a long-sleeved dark green shirt and black tailored coat. He figured the dude might be handsome if it weren’t for the sheer menacing aura the guy gave off. Rhodey wasn’t easily intimidated, but a quick shared glance with Fury showed he wasn’t the only one.

‘Well, hell,’ he thought. ‘Showtime.’ He stepped forward to greet the wizard and stuck his hand out in a hopefully friendly gesture. Maybe wizards didn’t shake hands? “Thanks for agreeing to see me on short notice. I’m Colonel James Rhodes.” The thought of offering his nickname to this guy made him feel very tiny and immature.

The opposing man hesitated only briefly, then gracefully stepped forward and shook the proffered hand.

“Potions Master Snape.” The man’s voice was deep, yet a smooth baritone. Snape exchanged nods of greeting with Fury but said nothing further.

Fury motioned for them to take a seat and the three men folded themselves down on to a picnic table, with Snape facing the other two. “Rhodes here is the guy I contacted you about. I know we agreed as to whom to include in the Statute, but I didn’t take in to account Rhodes. He’s essentially Stark’s brother in all but blood.”

A raised eyebrow and a look that made Rhodey feel like the guy was viewing his innards was the only reaction Snape gave.

Fury continued. “He’s been told nothing, and Stark has refused to see him until this is allowed or disallowed. Unusually for Tony, he’s kept to the letter of the agreement far tighter than even I gave him previous credit for.”  
  
Rhodey was anxious to break in and give his two cents that he wasn’t happy that Tony was keeping something so huge from him that he wouldn’t even see him or allow a video call. His mind had already run through the gamut of what could possibly be wrong, from Tony dying to being possessed and everything in-between and worse. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Fury had warned him very clearly to keep his mouth shut until Snape brought him into the conversation himself.

“I see,” said Snape succinctly. He was quiet for a moment. “Your connections to the military are the concern, Colonel. Should I grant Tony’s wish for you to be brought into this, you would be making a vow that Magic herself would bind you to. To fail or breach that vow would result in your death. Immediately. Are you willing to go so far, just to be able to stay in touch with someone?”

Rhodey felt the world closing in on him. Immediate death? That was a tad harsh, in his opinion, yet for Tony, he would end the world if he had to. “Yes. Without a thought. I’ve been protecting and best friends with Tony since he was thirteen years old. Whatever’s happened to him now won’t change that.”

Again, the piercing look from the wizard. With a slight wave of his hand, Rhodey felt something settle into his mind. “Fine. Agreed.” Snape turned to Fury. “Tell him what you wish, within reason, but if he betrays Harry, he’d best hope that Magic kills him first, for I will end him.” With that, Snape stood up and left through the same gap in the trees and simply vanished.

James Rhodes was a man who did not appreciate or like being confused. That’s how people died on the field and it’s how mistakes got made. He turned to Fury. “The fuck what that?! And who the hell is Harry?”

Fury shook his head. “That’s …” and Fury inwardly cursed as he realised he couldn’t say the man’s name out loud. “…just the way he is. I’m heading back to DC. I’ll let Stark know you’re good to land. Head to the tower. He’s got something for you to see that you won’t believe.”

Fury hated that wizard with all of his being. Something about him rubbed him backwards, and it wasn’t just the fact that he kept barring Fury from remember his name. He would figure it out some day, but apparently, that wasn’t going to be today.

Both men rose from their seats and said their goodbyes and James flew off shortly thereafter, making his way straight to the Avenger’s tower, at maximum speed. He was beyond worried about what the hell Tony had gotten himself into this time, and how it was going to affect his usually unstable best friend.

 

________________________________

 

Tony read the text from Fury and smiled. His platypus was going to flip when he realised that the reason behind the weird meeting was due to a little almost five-year-old energetic boy who had some kinda freaky abilities.

It wasn’t long after Tony got the text from Fury that Rhodey arrived on Tony’s landing dock with a heavy thud, then shed his armor which Jarvis helpfully stashed away for him.

From Rhodey’s vantage point, he could clearly see Tony through the glass window and doors. His bestie was standing just inside to watch him land and flashed him a genuine grin – something Rhodey hadn’t seen in a very long time.

His Tony had several grins and smiles, usually reserved for the press, paparazzi and various fans. This grin was one that Tony reserved for his true friends and it had been in far too short supply as of late and the Colonel was beyond happy to see it.

Yet, there was something odd going on. There was, of all things not expected, a toddler with messy black hair nestled securely in Tony’s arms, and the child was cuddled up into the crook of Tony’s neck.

Rhodey started to holler of to him as he closed the distance, but a quick hand slash and shake of Tony’s head stilled his words, so Rhodey swallowed his words and walked over to the awaiting pair.

He went inside the penthouse and saw immediately some obvious changes. There was a box of child’s toys near the entertainment centre, a child’s plastic turquoise cup on a table, a bunched up little blanket draped half across the sofa and a few other items scattered about the usually child-free area. This wasn’t just a kid visiting for the afternoon, this was something big, and Tony, well, Tony looked calm and happy.

“Heya, honey bear,” greeted Tony softly with a smile on his face. “About time you showed up.” His brown eyes were lit up in humour and Rhodey could hardly believe what he was seeing.

“Tones. What the hell?  Is he yours?” Rhodey figured the kid had to be. Tony didn’t willingly touch anyone, especially a kid who was obviously dead asleep on his shoulder. The kid was probably drooling, and Tony certainly didn’t do drool. Ever.

“Shhh, platypus. He doesn’t sleep easily or often, and him asleep on me like this is new.” Tony slowly turned around so his friend could get a clear look at the boy. Rhodey saw a soft little face framed by that black hair. He kinda looked like Tony, if you squinted a bit.

“Is this Harry?” James finally put the name he was given by the wizard into place.

“Yeah,” Tony confirmed, turning back around to face Rhodey. “He’s mine, but not in the way you’re thinking.” Rhodey quirked an eyebrow at him and Tony grinned that old shit-eating grin at him. The little bugger was enjoying Rhodey’s confusion!

“Let’s wait until he wakes up and I can introduce you two properly. With us talking, he won’t stay asleep long.” Tony’s prediction was correct as he felt the little body in his arms suddenly stiffen, and he put his hand on the boy’s back to rub it gently.

“Hey, little man. You’re safe. It’s okay to wake up. My friend Rhodey is here to meet you, if you want. I told you about him at lunch, remember?”

Harry had indeed heard about Rhodey from Tony and knew he was visiting today, but he was still muzzy from sleep and not quite awake yet.

“Hey Harry!” Rhodey greeted cheerfully and stuck out his hand to ruffle the boy’s hair. “I’m Rho-“ with a little squeak from Harry and a sudden pop, Harry was gone, right in front of him.

Rhodey’s eyes went wide at the same time Tony swore, and there was a loud ‘OOF!’ and a clank from the far corner of the room, in the ceiling.

“Jarvis? Track him,” Tony ordered. “Where’d he go this time?”

Before Jarvis could answer, Clint’s voice called down from the ventilation shaft. “I’ve got him. He’s fine.”

Tony sighed in relief and called out. “Harry, you wanna stay up there for a bit?”

“Yup, he does,” replied the archer. “He’s alright Stark. We’ll bond, you explain stuff, we’re good, right squirt?”

Tony heard a giggle from Harry and figured he was fine for now and motioned for Rhodey to take a seat on the couch on the other end of the room near the window. Tony took the chair opposite and waited for the questions to start.

“Tones, what the hell?” Rhodey was confused. It seemed to be that kind of day. Did he just watch a kid teleport?

“That, my platypus, is Harry. Soon to be Harry Stark.” Tony figured he’d need to get Jarvis to immortalize the look on Rhodey’s face in a huge photo. That face was such a mixture of emotion, and Tony intended to have some fun with his friend before this was all said and done.

“Stark?” Rhodey managed to choke out. “You. With a kid. Tony, you-“ but the billionaire cut him off before he hit full steam.

“Mine. Stark. Rhodey, as fun as it is to wind you up, his situation is serious and he’s heavily protected. Not only has he wormed his way into every Avenger’s heart, he’s magically protected. That’s why you had to talk to the wizard guy first.”

“Magic and wizards! Tony, what weird D&D game did I fly into? This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Lemme guess. For your next trick, there’s a beholder in the basement as a pet and you feed him Hulk’s ripped pants on Tuesdays?”

Tony barked in genuine laughter. Yeah, D&D alright. The kid is, well, gifted. Special. He’s a wizard, Rhodey. He teleports, at the very least. We’re slowly learning other abilities as they crop up and we’re sure we haven’t seen them all yet.

Rhodey smirked. “Oh, so a teleporting toddler isn’t enough of an ability?”

Tony’s grin immediately died on his face, and Rhodey wondered what he’d said that would bring a look like that to Tony.

“That’s just it, honey bear. He’s not a toddler. He turns five in a few weeks.” Tony let that sit for a sec and let Rhodey’s brain catch up.

Now, James Rhodes was not a stranger to kids. He was an uncle a few times over, and he had friends with kids. He liked them, sure, but as a lifetime military man, he’d never wanted any of his own. He was everyone’s favourite uncle though and he’d protect those kids with his life.

There was no way, in his mind, that Harry was almost five. He was so tiny and fine-boned, and really short. Granted, he hadn’t heard him speak yet, but at the closeup glance he got, the kid looked about two or three. He wasn’t the perfect judge for age on a little kid, but he knew enough. That meant abuse and he felt violently ill. His brain finally reengaged with his mouth. “Hit me with it Tones. All of it.”

His brother from another mother took a deep breath and did exactly that, right from the break-in on Privet Drive through the medical team on the helicarrier, and the reports of Harry’s health. Tony talked of Harry’s teleportation issues and fears, and explained that Harry likely wasn’t afraid of Rhodey, just simply was startled while half-asleep.

The Colonel took it all in, all of the pieces, and finally it all made sense, even the revelation of an entire hidden wizard society. Rhodey felt simultaneously sick to his stomach, absolutely livid with anger, and so damned proud of his Tony for taking a sick and abandoned little boy into his heart and home. For the first time in decades, Rhodey had a teeny bit of hope that Tony had found what could heal him.

Pepper, Happy and James had tried for so long to give him that spark back, especially after Afghanistan and the nuke had driven him to near destruction. Never in all his life would he have thought a child could do that, but Tony was so damned calm, almost peaceful. That spark was back in his eyes and his smile reached his eyes once again, and Rhodey had hope. Hope for his friend and hope for a little boy who would likely have been thrown away had he not attached himself to Tony and Pepper.

Tony got up after the long explanation and let his friend stew for a bit while he went over to the vent in the ceiling at the far corner of the room.

“Hey Clint, is the rugrat sleeping?” He got a little giggle in response and the grate opened, dangling by the hinge. A pair of green eyes peered over the edge. “Hi Mr. Tony!”

Tony’s grin was wide, and he put his arms up to the ceiling, which was a good twelve feet over his head.

“Down you come, Hare-bear. Ready to meet Mr. Rhodey?” Harry’s head disappeared and a pair of feet came down instead. Harry was held suspended by his hands, Clint hanging on to his wrists.

“Bombs away!” Clint called, and dropped Harry into Tony’s awaiting arms.

Much giggling and tickles later, the pair headed over to where Rhodey was still brooding and they sat down. Rhodey returned Harry’s shy smile with one of his own but had learned his lesson and didn’t move towards the little boy now sitting on Tony’s lap.

“Harry, this funny-looking old man is James Rhodes. He’s my bestest of bestest friends. We just call him Rhodey.”

Harry wiggled out of Tony’s lap and crossed over to where Rhodey was seated on the sofa. He stuck his hand out like Tony had showed him, to be a ‘polite little gentleman’. “Hi Mr. Rhodey. I’m Harry Potter. I’m sorry I ported away before, but I know you’re nice. Mr. Man said so,” Harry declared. If his Mr. Tony said Mr. Rhodey was a good friend, that was good enough for Harry.

Rhodey huffed a laugh and gently shook Harry’s hand. “No apology needed, and I’m very pleased to meet you Harry. Tony’s the bestest of Mr. Men, so I know you’re nice too.” The toothy grin Harry gave him in reply lit a little fire in Rhodey’s spirit and he now understood by what Tony meant that Harry had all of the Avenger’s under his thumb. That smile could power New York for a decade.

Harry took a step forward and loudly whispered to Rhodey. “He is the nicest! I take care of him too!” The little giggle that followed made Rhodey laugh spontaneously and he put his hands out in a silent ask if Harry would let him pick up him.

The boy hesitated only for the briefest of moments before stepping forward, allowing James to pick him up and settle him on the couch beside him. There was a soft green shimmer, and a black stuffed bear materialized in Harry’s arms. He might be feeling secure, but he wasn’t feeling bear secure. It took all of Rhodey’s self-control to not startle and his eyes shot up to meet Tony’s, wide in shock.

Tony simply shook his head to let Rhodey know not to even bother mentioning it around Harry. The mechanic watched his best friend chatter with the little boy who he already thought of as his son, and his heart swelled with warm pride and love. He finally had his platypus on board, the final cog in his complicated social wheel.

He was a happy and contented man, and it was a very new and strange feeling for him. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop or for some wizard drop in on him and tell him it was all a joke and take Harry away. Tony knew he would die for Harry, as would everyone in the tower.

Harry’s chatter started to get interspersed with a few yawns and Tony knew the little guy was running out of steam. He was still recovering from his ill treatment by the Dursleys, but the pediatrician told him that it would lessen in time. Harry’s energy levels and stamina had increased by leaps and bounds. Tony snorted inwardly. Amazing what some love will do for a kid. Tony’s introspection was interrupted by the elevator door opening.

Rhodey didn’t miss the knee-jerk reaction from Harry at the sound. His chatter immediately stopped, and he teleported straight over into Tony’s arms, bear and all. His green eyes were focused solidly on the hallway and every inch of him was on alert. Poor kid. No little kid should ever be that aware. He shared a knowing glance with Tony and his friend nodded at him. Harry may be settling in, but he was still wary, though improving rapidly. He no longer hid but ported to someone he trusted and knew was in the area.

Tony wrapped his arms around the boy to reassure him, but the clicking of heels down the hallway had Harry all smiles and he shoved away from Tony and went running, leaving his bear in Tony’s lap.

“Miss Pepper!” he cried in delight as she rounded the corner. He did a little jump and she easily caught him. Much tickling, giggles, a belly zerbert and hugs later, she greeted Rhodie and put Harry back down to play with his toys.

“Hey Rhodie. Welcome to our new level of insane, in the best way possible.” Rhodie stood and they exchanged a warm hug before Pepper greeted Tony with a quick kiss.

“How was he today?” she asked.

“Awesome,” replied Tony. “One small panic attack when sugar bear startled him, but he went straight to Clint and recovered immediately. He’s had a great day.”

Pepper smiled at Rhodie, who was watching Harry play with a dump truck, scooping up toy soldiers and making his version of truck sounds as he dumped them in a little box. “What do you think of him James?” she asked.

“He’s an amazing kid, Pepp, and I don’t mean the magic either. He’s irresistible.”

Tony smiled fondly. “He is. He just takes away all the dark, without even trying.” Rhodey looked at his friend with a piercing glance.

“He’s the reason I haven’t seen you wrecked in nearly a month, isn’t he?” he bluntly asked.

Tony didn’t even try to deny it. “Yeah. There’s no booze anywhere in the tower. The smell of it terrifies Harry, for starters.”

“That uncle,” Rhodey growled, and both Tony and Pepper nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. That uncle, who will pay dearly once we have custody of Harry. Harry’s worth every heartache it’s been legally. I can’t be like my father was, Rhodey. I won’t. He deserves the world on a platter, and if he only asked for it, I’d give him the moon. As it is, we’ve barely been able to get him to ask for food and water.”

Pepper stood up. “I’ll feed the little monkey and give him a bath. You boys have fun. No Dursley killing until after court.” Tony snorted and Rhodey got a wicked glint in his eyes. Neither made any promises.

After Harry picked up his toys and said his goodbyes to Rhodey and Tony, Tony turned straight to Rhodey. “He’s mine, platypus,” he said with definitive finality. “The paperwork is submitted, and the entire thing is before the British court. Fury has helped with a little shove here and there; I have barristers in England and most of the SI legal team working on it. I don’t care who I have to wreck, he’ll be my son in only a few more weeks.”

Rhodey looked Tony straight in the eyes, and the look on his face promised death. “And after?”

“We destroy the Dursleys legally and utterly,” Tony said darkly. “They have a son Harry’s age. He’s healthy, cared for and loved. Spoiled rotten, so I’ve been told. I’ll keep an eye on him over the years, but the Dursleys will never have custody of him, if it costs me every dime in every account I have. He hurt Harry too, but he’s five. He only knows his parents’ conditioning. I would never harm him.”

“Good,” said Rhodey with military steel in his voice. “You tell me where and when if you need me, and you’ll have it. How the hell that little guy came out of that wreck with that personality, I’ll never know, but Tony – protect him. He’s special.” Tony nodded in agreement.

“It’s not just his powers Tones. He’s going to change the world someday. I’ve known him all of an hour or two, and I dunno, there’s just something. You need me, you say it, I’ll be here.”

The two best friends grinned at each other and plotted for a little while longer before Rhodey had to head back to DC.

Once Rhodey flew off, Tony poured himself a coffee instead of joining the crew downstairs for supper. He had plans to make.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! I've left no hints this time as to whom will be in the next chapter, but I hope to have it up far sooner than this monstrosity of a chapter was. As always, this is not beta read. I have some pretty mad skills in English, but if you feel the need/desire to shred my chapters and beta read for me, feel free to send me a PM. 
> 
> Until next time!
> 
> A.


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